


another step backwards, another step forwards

by cryinghour



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Disassociation, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s06e19 I Am My Monster, Pre-Episode: s06e20 The Future, Steven Universe Has PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Steven Universe Needs Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 47,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23396986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryinghour/pseuds/cryinghour
Summary: Recovery is not a linear progression, she's told him. But it doesn't make it any easier to handle the ups and downs, the shoots and ladders that come with trying to not only feel better, but to be better.Or: snapshots of Steven Universe, in the months after his embarrassingly public meltdown.
Comments: 627
Kudos: 1287





	1. day 47

Sometimes, his therapy sessions were… nice?

They were nice, in weeks that had been good to him - Steven would recap those weeks with much gusto to Dr. A, who would congratulate him on his good week, and it created a sort of feedback loop of positivity that was really, really nice. Enjoyable, even!

He could talk about the new songs he was learning on his guitar, about how he’d gotten back into the habit of cooking proper food, about how he’d borrowed some old study guides from Connie in an attempt at - something? Hoo boy, he had a lot of good things to talk about, and so much as they didn’t attempt to do any “deep diving” of sorts it was perfectly, _totally_ fine that he was in therapy, that he could spend an hour talking about himself, just himself, to someone else.

\- _and_ , and it wasn’t like those “deep dives” were always a disaster, either!

When he’d walk into the office in the right mindset (productive, like in the days when he was running Little Homeschool properly, efficient and full of confidence), they could sit down and talk about the past, unpack a little of what he felt about his mom, about the Diamonds, about everything that had happened to him since becoming a Gem proper (or even before), and he’d leave feeling - cleaned? Raw, certainly, but with a preciseness that left him still functional. 

Those days Steven looked forward to a little less, but he didn’t dread them, _per se._

The days he dreaded weren’t as rare as he would’ve liked, but after a few weeks of seeing his therapist, there were still sessions that left him - not _worse off_ , certainly, but just painfully aware of how short one measly hour could be. Those sessions, he left red-faced (or stupidly pink-faced, just a few times, and he’d have to sit in the Dondai for up to a half hour trying to will himself to just calm, _calm down_ , he was _fine_ now, he just needed to get home and he couldn’t _drive like that_ -) and teary-eyed, and feeling like a husk, hollowed-out with all the precision of a machete into his heart.

What he did after _those_ sessions varied, but whatever he did always had that tinge of guilt to it - and oh, he was supposed to work on that too, that feeling of shame he had over feeling less than stellar! But sometimes he’d drive over to the beach furthest from the Temple and would sit, staring out at the waves diving in and out of the sand, for hours; sometimes he’d go up to the hillside near where he had trained with Jasper and would just let it out and _scream._ He'd come back home then late, throat as sore as his heart, but feeling - something. Not better, but something else. A solution of sorts.

Most times, though, he would just find himself at home, would slug himself up the stairs, close the blinds, and just - lay there.

Would not do anything, just listening to the rushing of blood in his ears and the sounds of silence around him. 

He talked to Dr. A about that, expecting (hoping?) for a full reprimanding, but instead she had shrugged at him. “Many people find what you’re going through in these sessions to be heavy work, Steven,” she had said softly, “and heavy work requires its own set of recovery. While you should be careful about isolating yourself too much, it’s okay to take a breather, too.” 

She had pulled out some worksheets for him then, too, given him some tips on how to handle his coming down whatever it was ( _trauma,_ his mind unhelpfully supplied) that had him so worked up in the first place. And he had shrugged at her, glanced them over and shoved them into his bag, murmuring with embarrassment that he would consider it. 

…and yet, after that session itself had gone south, and he found himself up in his room, the words from the sheet came back to him - _contact with others_ , it had recommended.

He knew that Connie’s study break wasn’t for another 43 minutes, but he found himself calling her anyways - and oh, he had to swallow down the guilt that came with that, of course - and as it connected, as the glow from the screen lit up his face in the darkened room, as he muttered out a hoarse greeting to her concerned face… 

… maybe, he thought, he could do this.

\---


	2. day 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven tries to have a chat.

In a way, having completely mentally broken down after so many weeks (months, _years_ \- ) of pretending to be fine -

\- it was really something of a relief, almost?

Almost.

(Of course, not to say that this experience was in any way easy, no - confronting that his own self-loathing had reached such a point that he had physically transformed into a storys-high literal _monster,_ had potentially put the entirely of Beach City in danger, had in a very real sense put his entire entourage of family and friends in mortal peril - no, that kind of sucked, whichever way you cut it.)

Almost, and the relief came in bit, small things he would’ve not looked for if it hadn’t been their absence that was so ringing - because oh, the things he had been holding back, smothering, keeping locked away were on clear display now whether he liked it or not, and there was no going back from _that_ display he had put on of them! His hate had been sharp and scaled, and his pain had been pin-pointed pricks of pure energy. 

It had felt - not good, no. But maybe? He wasn't sure.

He had, in his transformation, pushed open a door to everyone that there was no way of closing. There was no way he could smile and shrug and say “don’t worry about it” or “I’m fine, really, honestly” to everyone now, when they had seen the full display of his mental state. In a way, the gig was irreversibly, totally up.

\- or, at least, there was no way that they would believe him on it. Not any time soon, at least.

And he kind of… liked that. 

......

...maybe.

(So there was the relief part, then. Because it had been such a heavy mask he’d decided to wear, and now it was shattered destroyed gone, and it was so much lighter now without it. Besides, he was plenty a heavy heart without it. )

Then again, Steven doubted that they really had believed him in the first place… especially with how they were treating him now.

Because oh, the soft kid gloves were back on now, and it stung because he remembered telling the Gems that he _wasn't_ a kid not only a few months ago, insisting that he had changed and grown and- and now? Now there were load of small smiles, and gentle touches on his shoulder, and a lot of reassuring “ _you’ll be fine, Steven, we’ll take care of you”_ talk that at first had seemed so warm and - and comforting, and now it had been almost a week of that?

And now it had been days of trying to ignore the soft tears that gathered in Pearl’s eyes whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, or Amethyst’s own slow slide back into self-deprecation, in the little biting phrases she would tack on to trying to cheer him up, or the way that Garnet was clearly blaming herself for not noticing his descent, even though she wasn’t saying anything about it, but it was _obvious, he knew it_ \- and he was _sick_ of it.

He was sick of it, and he felt sick of it, and he felt sick.

So maybe it wasn’t as much of a relief, that he finally had given himself permission to visibly feel awful, after all - because he was still Steven, and he could still see and feel everyone else’s pain all too real, and how did he _not_ blame himself for that? How did he not, now that he’d been given full permission to wallow, _wallow_ in everyone else's misery as well as his own? 

\---

He planned to ask that finally, one night after waking up with a tear-stained pillowcase, with the sky already painted shades of purple and telling that he had missed much of the afternoon once again. The Gems (and his dad, and Connie, of course) were taking shifts in checking on him, in making sure he was “okay” (he wasn’t), in making sure he was still there (he was), in making sure he wasn’t going to do anything (he wasn’t - he wasn’t, he promised her, and tried to put in so much truth into those words that maybe even _he_ could believe them and gosh, did that question haunt him), and the footsteps on the stairs brought him to sit up, to look with bleary eyes on tonight’s guest.

“How are you feeling?” asked Pearl, as she laid her own gaze on him.

He shrugged wordlessly at first, sniffling. His face was salt-encrusted and damp at the same time, he hadn’t showered in however many days, he had just woken up (and his sleep schedule was completely wrecked now, for certain) - it was pretty obvious, he figured. 

But she waited patiently, only taking a few delicate steps into his room before standing there, a mug of something warm clasped between her hands, and he figured, well. His dishonesty, his masks and his cover-ups and his fraudulent behavior (that echoed in his mind, _I'm a fraud, I'm a fraud, I'm -)_ it had already cost him so much. 

What was there to lose now, in being honest?

“I… I feel...bad?" The words were difficult, like a language he had yet to fully learn, and yet it saturated his consciousness in such a way that, well, how could he not pick it up? He swallowed, hand in his hair, and averted his gaze from Pearl's, because if she cried - oh, and there was no doubt that she was going to cry, he _knew_ it, how could she not when he was so, _so-_ he would have to clamp it all down, and there was no mask to cover this up anyways, so _whatever_ -

“I feel bad,” deep breath, “and everyone else is feeling bad, and - and I don’t think I can handle that all right now.” He clenched his comforter in his hands, tightly, and resisted the urge to pull on his hair (mostly because his scalp already hurt from where he had done that the other night). “I know - I know what everyone’s been through, what I did - it hurt everyone. It hurt dad, it hurt Connie, and Garnet and Amethyst and _you -”_

Pearl flinched; he pretended to not catch it, but it caught him in his chest, a hook on his heart that tugged it straight up through his mouth.

“- I hurt everyone, and I - I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m - I’m sorry, I…”

Great.

“Steven,” he heard Pearl say, and her footsteps sounded closer as she quickly stepped over to his bedside, and he could hear her, feel her sit down next to him. “Please, Steven - it’s, it’s okay that you’re sorry, but you need to calm down! We, we understand that you’re hurting, that you’ve been hurting, but, oh, Steven….” Cautiously, he felt her hand on his shoulder, on his wrist, and after a moment realized she was trying to pull his arm down, from where his hands were gripping tight, and - 

He dropped his arm back down to his side, the stinging sensation on the side of his head (his _brain_ ) beginning to throb once again. 

She didn’t let go. “What do you need from us, then, Steven? What can we do for you?”

What _could_ they do? 

He didn’t know. 

Maybe. Or maybe he did, 

“I… I need you guys to stop this. This - this treating me like I’m _broken_ . And -” Steven looked up quickly at Pearl, though, as the thought came to him suddenly with a rush, and as he saw her shocked face, the rebuttal on her lips already - “ - and yeah, I kinda _am_ right now, but this treating me like I am, it’s not - it’s not helping! I, I can see how much I’ve hurt you, but I need you all to, to stop treating me like I’m two steps away from having another meltdown, because if you guys keep doing that _then I might_ , and I _can’t_ -”

He took a deep breath, and another, and found himself suddenly three feet into the doorway of sobbing. He could feel delicate hands rubbing his back as he cried again, again, again - 

\- but with it, a little bit of relief.

Maybe.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy didnt expect people to like this?? thats pretty cool, thank you x 500 to everyone who's liked and commented! 
> 
> update: adding my images in at the end of each chapter, yee haw


	3. day 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven has his first therapist appointment, and hears some buzzing. 
> 
> (cw: disassociation, panic attack)

This was just - way, _way_ too fast.

He had only brought the idea up to his dad in the hopes that it would get the ball rolling, because normally, Steven knew in the vaguest way, these things took time - sometimes a painful amount. He knew this, had very briefly entertained the idea of therapy months and months ago and had seen posts from people looking up mental health resources on the various social medias he haunted - and he knew that getting appointments were a hassle at best. Hence, why he had closed out of that tab, ignored the slight guilt he had felt, and had gone back to his garden, because it was hardly like he was desperate, right? It was hardly a pressing concern, right?

_Yeah, right._

He hadn’t expected, then, that when the idea would be brought up one morning that was still not too long since he had had his embarrassingly public meltdown, that his dad would nod at him with a firm chin and disappear down the stairs only to return not even an hour later announcing that he had set Steven up with a _therapis_ t. “On Dr. Maheswaran’s recommendation, of course, because I didn’t know where you’d begin looking for something like this!” he had professed with great enthusiasm - and then had delivered the blow that his first appointment was on _Monday_ , thanks to a last-minute cancellation! Wasn’t that great, Steven?

It had been _Friday._

So the weekend had accelerated by with a blink of an eye, and before he knew it his dad had had him in the Dondai, they were listening to the morning radio and talking quietly about nothing of consequence. And then they were at the therapist’s office at a bright and early 8:45 in the morning (because of course that would’ve been the one spot open, the first one offered that Greg had eagerly agreed to because his son was _suffering,_ don’t you know, and he needs _help)_ and pulling into one of the front spots _._

Because he needs _therapy_ , needs to be examined because Connie’s mom had lied and his brain _was_ broken. It was cracked, wrecked, ~~shattered~~ -

“You doin’ alright there, Schtu-ball?” he heard his dad say from what felt like miles away, and as his consciousness seemed to snap back with such a speed it left him momentarily dizzy - Steven blinked and realized that his dad was outside the car already, even though they had just gotten there. Greg was looking at him expectantly, a smile on his face that definitely didn’t betray his own personal nerves about the situation, and a quick glance at the car’s clock showed already a handful of minutes later, that he was running the risk of being late if he (spaced out) (freaked out) waited any longer. 

So with a quickly murmured apology and a gathering of his things - not many with him today, he wasn’t sure what all he was supposed to be even bringing but he wanted to bring his bag with him, with whatever it was that he had inside it from the last time he used it, which had been far too long ago - he slid out the car door, closing it with a (completely non-shaking) hand, and followed his dad inside.

\---

It was only inside the elevator, heading up to the seventh floor that the sort of awkward-yet-pleasant silence between them was broken.

“I have to say, Steven, you’re really being brave, you know?” Greg sighed as the doors slid shut, glancing over at his son with a warm, tired sort of look on his face. His scruff of a beard was looking even more scraggly than usual; he scratched the back of his head, messing with the too short locks back there as they went up slowly, a dinging from the door for each floor they passed. “Really! I never did anything like this, but I - I’ve thought about it, you know?”

“And I mean, lots of people go to doctors like this-”

The third floor brought the elevator to a halt, letting a person in a grey turtleneck onto the left. They stood off to the side, purposefully making a show of ignoring the two of them even as Greg continued speaking, continued telling, and a brief seizing of fear grappled his chest -

“ - and, I dunno. I just wanted to make sure-”

The back of Steven’s mind whispered, hissed out as it was squeezed by his heart: _then why didn’t you go? Why didn’t you take me? Why are you still_ talking?!

“- that you didn’t feel, you know, bad or anything about this?”

Steven blinked, and tried a laugh, but it sounded distant, as if he were back in the car still, or on some alien planet - _because he was an alien_ , not _human_ \- and he shrugged, looking away and staring at the numbers engraved onto the paneling infront of him.

Two, three, four - the door chimed for the fourth floor and there was the distinct sensation of gravity’s pull pausing on them; the doors opened and their temporary companion hurried off. They might’ve just as well had not existed at all, except for the sensation of an overly wrapped heart and a buzzing sensation humming on the right side of his head, above his ear. Or maybe it was the left? Or maybe his entire head was just pulsing, pulsing, and - 

“Bad? I don’t, I don’t feel bad, dad. Don’t worry about it.”

Greg might’ve said something else to him; _why didn’t you take me to any doctors at all?!_ hissed along with the drone of the elevator, with the buzzing, with the -

Ding, ding, ding. 

\---

Steven had tried to ignore his father after that, though, to the best of his abilities - which, granted, was something he wasn’t very good at in general, as Steven had never been the type to play a deaf ear to someone else’s pain. So much as he maybe wanted to not pay attention, he was still able to pick up on the sad slouch of Greg’s shoulders as he followed his son down the hallway, was still able to pick up on the sad lilt to his tone beyond the buzzing in his ears as he checked in with the receptionist at the office. 

And yet - yet, it wasn’t that difficult. Wasn’t impossible, with the buzzing.

No, he was trapped in a sort of in-between space at the moment, trapped light years away from the suite they were in, and yet painfully aware of his location, of the beige walls and posters of lakes and flowers on the walls. There were a handful of chairs set up, uncomfortable-looking things meant only as a temporary respite from whatever journey the clinic’s patients would’ve gone through to get here, and as he looked down, at the low carpet with a vaguely abstract, swirling design - he couldn’t focus on it at all.

It was like he was looking at everything through a swarm of bees, or that there was cotton stuffed in his ears, or, or -

_Why didn’t you notice how broken I was?_

He sat in the chair in the corner of the waiting room (which was thankfully almost empty, just an older woman sitting in one of the middle chairs, closest to the door to the offices and with a posture to suggest that maybe she was eager to get in, contrary to his own wanting to get out, out, _out-_ ) and just - 

_Why can’t you take care of this yourself, Steven?_

He didn’t - he didn’t get why he was here, why he had agreed to this at all, why he had smiled and said sure instead of just running away or warping away, a million miles through the depth of space, which was practically where his brain was anyways, broken and - 

_Why?_

He gripped the armrest on his chair. It creaked too loudly under his grip. 

He -

\---

“Steven Universe?”

He almost didn’t hear his name being called at first, but with his dad’s heavy hand on his shoulder (which definitely didn’t make him jump, didn’t snap him back to reality in a way that was almost physically _painful,_ that almost gave him whiplash like so many ships rocketing through space and he was a child, crying, and - ), he looked up and saw what appeared to be a younger woman, maybe in her late thirties, holding open a door and smiling encouragingly.

She gave him a small tilt of her head, gesturing for him to - 

_Why?_

-to, to do what? Come into the office?

He stared. For perhaps a moment too long.

Her smile didn’t falter, but after a second or two (or four, or eight) passed, she averted her gaze to Greg; her voice was soft but steady still, even under the buzzing in the room. How was no one else hearing this buzzing? “And you must be - ah, Greg Universe. We spoke on the phone. Steven, would you like your father to come in with you, just for this first session?”

 _I want my dad!_ Huh? _Wait, what-_

“N-no, no,” he found the words rising up out of him before he was aware of the answer itself; found himself rising up as well, out of the chair and definitely _not_ stumbling a second before making his way over to the open doorway. 

“I’m fine, I’m - I’m fine.” 

He shook his head, and maybe he gave her a smile - he wasn’t sure. But he walked in.

\---

And then suddenly, time leapt in such a way that - that now Steven was sitting down on a sofa that looked, felt well-worn, yet not entirely comfortable (not like home). His bag was set to the side, and his doctor (presumably that’s who she was, he didn’t ask, he sure hoped that was the right person) was sitting in a chair across from him, and - 

\- and she had said something. Was waiting for an answer?

“Sorry, what?” he murmured, blinking once, twice, three times hard as he stared at her - her form, sitting in the chair, across from him. Not just a projection of light, but a real human, and he struggled to remember the last time he had talked to someone outside of his immediate family (and Connie, who was - was different, was someone who knew what had happened to him all along, was someone who was -) - 

“I asked, how are you feeling, Steven?” she replied, her smile unfaltering by his weird ( _broken)_ behavior. “Give me just a moment, let me just sort through my papers here- “ She had a few papers with her, true, and she was glancing through them before clipping them underneath the metal clip of her board. “- and we can get started.

Silence. Buzzing. He looked down at his hands - they were attached to his arms and thankfully not pink. There was just a faint scratching of pencil against the papers, and the hum of the room, and. He blinked.

“So, what brings you in?”

He - what? He shrugged - he didn’t know how to respond to that. What had brought Steven in to a _therapist_ ’s office, more like what hadn’t brought him in! He laughed. Or maybe he didn’t. It was funny, but the buzzing was just - so distracting, and the question was just so, so odd - 

Or, at least he assumed his dad had mentioned to her what it was that was wrong with him, as best he could - he didn’t, he -

\- he opened his mouth and - 

_What brings you in?_

\- with a moment of panic, he realized the words seemed -

_What brings you in?_

\- to be trapped -

_What’s wrong with you, Steven Universe?_

And - the buzzing was just so loud, and -

“Steven?”

\---

He blinked again.

He blinked, and suddenly the woman who he was presuming was his doctor was - suddenly much closer to him, holding onto his arm, speaking in her calm tones but much louder than she had been speaking before, which was good because the buzzing was _so loud_ and - 

“Steven, I need you to breathe with me, okay?” and Steven realized with a start that he _was_ breathing, but very quickly, but very shallow and his lungs were _burning_ with it _. Burning_ and his head was spinning and -

He blinked and realized he was squeezing onto her hand with his own two, and his lungs were burning, and - 

“Breathe in, and we’re going to hold it for four seconds and then release it, nice and slow, ok?” 

As much as he could, he followed along with her, feeling the air cool on the back of his throat as he took in a large gulp of air, holding it in his head until it started to buzz even more than it had been (which was something because it was so _loud_ ) and when she nodded he released it between his teeth.

He repeated it again with her coaching, a second, third, many times before he gave a shake of his head at her, finally looking up to meet her clear face with his wrecked one. Was his face wet now? 

“Feeling better?” she said to him, seemingly unfazed by - by whatever _that_ had just been. He shrugged. “Understandable. Do you want me to go get your father?” 

He shook his head. The buzzing had died down, at least.

She smiled, and gave a small chuckle. “Also understandable. Here, I’ve got plenty of these -” she gestured to a box of tissues on the stand next to the couch; he grabbed a handful before sitting back, dabbing at his face in a way that felt completely useless and just a tad bit embarrassing. She scooted back in her chair a bit, grabbing the clipboard that she must’ve sat down and glancing down at it. “Give me just a second to make a quick note here, and just practice on calm, deep breaths, okay? In and out.” 

He did just that, humiliation almost as strong as his confusion as he watched her quietly write. What - what had just _happened?_ He had been in the elevator with his dad - or had been in the Dondai - and then suddenly he was just, what - freaking out for no reason? 

_What?_

“I believe you were having a panic attack, actually,” he heard her say, a smartness to her words and his stomach churned as he realized that he had been talking out loud. Looking back at her, and her face was still pleasant, unflappable. “We can talk about it if you’d like, and I think it might really help you, but only if you’re ready.” 

“That’s, uhm … that’s never really happened before, you know?” he said, and it sounded now so, so loud in his ears, and for a moment he wished the buzzing would come back, because his ears could hear practically everything ever now and it was a - it was something. “I’m sorry, I -”

“No need to apologize,” she tutted softly, hands clasped in her lap. “You don’t need to be sorry to me. “ She paused for a moment, clearly thinking over her words, and with a horror Steven noticed her rubbing her hand, the hand he had clasped so tightly and - it wasn’t bruised, hopefully, _please_. “Obviously it didn’t look like fun for you, though, so we can discuss what to do if something like that happens again, especially if you’re by yourself. Does that sound good?”

\---

Turns out, it was - it wasn’t good. But it wasn’t bad, either. 

An hour or so later, he walked out of the office with a fistful of worksheets crammed into his bag, and with salt tracks on his cheeks, and with an appointment for next week. 

It was a start. 

\---


	4. day 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven ignores some things, and apologizes a lot.
> 
> (cw: heavy discussion of self-harm)

Steven purposefully didn’t think back to his meltdown as much as possible. Of course, it was impossible to ignore completely, sure, no way around that - kinda what happens when your anguish and self-loathing manifests as a giant, spiked, pink _monster_ and all. 

(And with that manifestation, there was the guarantee of questions, from everyone in Beach City - questions that he did his best to dodge, or to play off with a laugh and a shrug. Thankfully for Steven, the citizens of their sleepy seaside town were used to such things occurring a little more often than they typically did elsewhere in Delmarva (or the world, for that matter), so it wasn’t _impossible_ in the long run. It wasn’t too hard to play it all off as just another weird day, like so many other weird ( _traumatic_ ) days, so it didn’t really matter if each one of those questions, those reminders caused a stabbing shock of a strange fear in the back of his mind in the end. )

No, he did his best to block it out, because who wanted to even remember _that?_ Could he be blamed for wanting to ignore it, to say “never mind all that” to it all and to go on - not exactly as normal, no, but maybe pretending that he had had a normal, _human_ crisis? 

That he had cried, that he had freaked out in such a way that it had scared everyone deeply (and _oh_ did he regret that aspect of it the worst, but he was working through it now, it wasn’t okay but it was in the past and he was learning about - about the lack of benefit to remorse in this situation, and -) _without_ there being catastrophic damage involved?

He had asked about that very fact during one of his now weekly therapy sessions (and it had been suggested that he try to schedule even more frequently, at least initially, but he had point blank refused because - because that was ridiculous, really -) and his doctor had quietly implored him to yes, maybe do his best to not dwell on it - but to also not ignore that it had happened entirely. That it was a topic they could piece through when Steven was ready, because she cautioned that it was probably going to be a sensitive topic for him, and probably pretty difficult, and you know what? That had been enough to convince him that yeah, it was a topic for a later time, definitely. Maybe even never.

Because really, once they had all cleaned up the coastline, repaired the house and gotten things back to a semblance of normal - it was. Easier, then. Sweep up the pain, hide the damages. 

Go back to normal, and all. 

\----

He had been without the bulk of his powers for about a month now, give or take.

It was odd, sure - they had become such a given in his life that it was odd to have to really think, to really have to search his mind and his gem for his shield. And gosh - it meant that he had to put healing corrupted Gems on hold, because his tears were just - just tears, now. Just normal, sad, baby tears with no magical properties at all. 

“Maybe it’s tired?” Amethyst had jokingly suggested to him one day after she caught him trying to bubble the toaster, and pointed at his stomach, at his gem hidden there. “You did, uh - you used a lot of energy, back then? You healed _yourself_ , even - maybe it’s tapped out for a little bit, and just has to recharge.”

“Huh,” he had wondered out loud, lifting his shirt to look at the glimmering pink stone embedded there. “Has that ever happened to you?” 

She had shrugged. “Nah, but I’ve never used as much juice as you have, either. Relax, my dude - just take it easy, and I’m sure it’ll come back in time.”

\---

So, that had been the plan. Take it easy on his gem powers, take it easy on his chores and cooking and cleaning and being an adult (nevermind that he legally was still a _kid,_ as he had been reminded of all too frequently lately) - just take it super, _super_ hard on his brain and his emotions once a week, and with those techniques try to cobble together the pieces of his life back into something resembling -

\- resembling what, he had no idea. 

_Great._

And yet, as much cobbling as he was doing, it was - he was still seeming to be embarrassingly fragile.

It wasn’t like every day was a struggle, especially after _so_ much time had passed since his meltdown - for the most part, he was doing alright, he figured! He was back to video-chatting with Connie instead of her insisting on stopping over in-person, and he got out of bed every day now (though, okay, sometimes it was closer to evening, and it was only for a short while, or to use the bathroom - he still got _up_ and that counted for something, right?). He had a few plants he had brought down from the garden that he was tending, and he was now on his third spa-related candle, practicing his aromatherapy that seemed to… well, not do a whole lot admitted, but it smelled nice and didn’t hurt anything, so!

So there.

But despite his best efforts, his thoughts had been given permission to run wild it seemed, and wild they were - sometimes he felt like a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the right (or wrong) thing to set him off. 

One time, he had taken it upon himself to clean out the bathroom cabinet after noticing that he was out of mouthwash - only to have noticed an empty spot where all the Diamond essences had been stored previously. From there he had begun to search for the ornate bottles, and from there he had snapped at Pearl that no, he knew what he was doing, where did they hide them, and from there - he had found himself yelling at her, because he needed those, and he had already messed up _so much_ , and now he couldn’t even help with uncorrupting gems, and -

Yeah, it hadn’t been pretty. 

(They had found the bottles stored in the pantry.)

\---

“How have you been with suicidal thoughts since we last met?”

Even though he’s expecting it, it’s hard for him to not groan at the question. He had known it was coming, had been dreading it the most out of anything that she’d ask, but still. It’s painful and intrusive, but the question is an apparently necessary evil to the therapy process - at least, that was the picture he had put together of it by now. It served as a check-in at the beginning of each session, to get a baseline idea of where he was at, a heads up to how the past week or so had been - 

-and it was akin to a bandaid being ripped off, each week, on the growing and festering _wound du jour._

Of course, he has some weeks where he can smile through it, report that he’s doing great, that he’s been peachy-keen since their last session and what a silly question that was even, him, Steven Universe, thinking about such things! Thoughts of hurting himself, didn’t they realize he was _Steven_ , he was (had been) notorious for his can-do, upbeat attitude!

Those times, Dr. A would give him a smile and nod, check down something on her intake form that he wasn’t entirely sure what it was but it felt like a small _victory_ at least, and they would dive into discussing the week with gusto. 

(Sometimes, even then things still fell apart, but… but not as quickly? Maybe.)

That wasn’t every week, though. Some weeks - the early sessions, especially, when his mind was struggling to get away, and a persistent buzzing would overwhelm his senses - he would just stare. Sometimes he’d just look down, dig through his bag and do his best to shrug attention away from the question. (That never worked.) One session, he had come in from such a horrific night with his own head right beforehand, that he had burst into tears immediately and they had wasted half the session getting him to just _calm down_.

Which brought him back to this week, and this week's question.

Steven let out a breathy sort of sigh, crossing his arms across his chest. “What do you think?” was his spat challenge, self-conscious of how bratty it sounded but there nonetheless, and it accomplished _nothing_ but getting Dr. A to give him a sad look, as she checked something off on her pad of paper -

\- and _oh_ did that sting, stung like it did every week that he failed that simple, stupid question. 

“I-it’s not like I - I _do_ anything, though!” he quickly said ( _whined_ , like a child, and-), sitting up on the couch and glowering at her with as much of a challenging force he could muster, considering everything that lay between them. “I never have, I never _do_ ! So - so why d’you have to bring that up each time?! Why do you suggest that every time, because you know it’s, it’s - “ he searched for the words, as a ringing buzz fizzled behind his right ear - “ _counterproductive_ , you know?!”

Dr. A looked up at him and - if it could be considered a small victory, looked almost taken aback for a split second. She shook her head though, her pleasant demeanor quick to return back as she folded her hands infront of her, leaning forward a bit, and -

“Steven, “ she said in that patient voice of hers, like she was _consoling_ him; he quickly checked his own face with the back of his hand, to make sure his cheeks were still dry. “I’m not accusing you of anything, I promise.”

“Self harm is… it’s unfortunately common, and it’s one of my duties here to make sure you’re safe, that you’re not going to hurt yourself, intentionally or not. And also…” She pauses then, pursing her lips together for a moment as if she was deciding to continue on or not, before sighing. “It can manifest in many different ways, Steven, not just the sort of heavy, stereotypical ways that get, you know - dramatized as being what self harm is.”

“Have you ever found yourself hurting yourself in smaller ways? Say, hitting yourself, scratching, pulling your hair- “

 _Scratch._

Wait -

“Pulling my _hair_ counts?” He looked down at his hands incredulously, flexing his fingers stiff against his denim thighs; the urge came to bury them into his locks. “You can’t be serious.” 

“It can, depending on how frequently it happens, what the intent behind it is.” His hands twitched, once, twice. “ Anything that you’re doing to intentionally cause yourself pain can be considered self-harm. Steven, have you- “

" _No - !!"_

Usually in his sessions, there was a dam that needed to be torn down - well, ideally eased open carefully, to get him to share what was going on. He had, over many years, perfected the art of protecting his deeper, darker thoughts - had hoarded onto them like precious jewels and was not at all keen to share them, lest others judge him, or take them for their own, or let them run amuck. 

Because there was a hoard, a dam of dangerous words and thoughts hidden up in his mind, and with that sentence, it _broke._

He found himself standing, stomping his foot hard on the floor. Found himself gesturing, and _yelling_ now, voice dripping with a bitterness that would’ve surprised a good number of people, but not Steven himself, because he could _always_ hear this part of himself, even when he didn’t want to - 

“Well, if we’re counting that stuff, if pulling my hair counts then yeah, sure! Oh, and I’ve stubbed my toe last night too, better write that one down, because you _know_ that was all because I wanted to, to _kill_ myself, really!!” His hands clenched into fists, tight and angry at his sides.

(In a distant way, he could tell that he was furious far out of proportion for what she had said, for what the situation called for - and yet, the anger just felt so… so _right_ . So right, and so - so _powerful -)_

“Gosh, and, and maybe you should take a look at the - the cliff above my house, because I once slipped off there, and that was probably me trying to die, you know?! Or,” and he drew the word out long, sarcastic, _furious_ \- “ that time I turned into a _giant_ , _scary monster_ and smashed my, my stupid broken _head_ in on it, yeah, doc! I think you should go talk to my _monster_ , because wow, did _he_ ever _want to die_ \- put his head through the rocks there, does _that_ count as _self harm_?!”

"I -"

His face was fully glowing pink now. He could see it reflected in her glasses. 

She looked - shocked, fully now, taken back by his yelling (or maybe the _freakish glowing_ , couldn’t rule that out - in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that this was perhaps the first time this had happened in therapy, had happened in so many months since he had drained his powers almost completely by _transforming_ \- ) and visibly struggling to think of the right thing to say. Dr. A paused, setting her notes down to the side, and scooted her chair back forward (because she had moved back at some point, or maybe he had done that, or -) towards him, towards the _danger_ -

“....yes, Steven. That would count.”

“SHUT _UP!!”_

_Crack._

Steven whipped his head to the side - the mug Dr. A had had with her, the one she always had sitting to the side, now was laid strewn in so many pieces across the desk. 

Shards of it were soaked in tea, dripping on the floor, and the -

\- the ~~shattered~~ pieces -

\- ~~shattered~~ -

\---

Things got - weird, then. 

Far away, as if he were watching someone else’s body react. 

He was distinctly aware that he was pink. He was pink fully from head to toe, and he was - was running, quickly - not as fast as his double-time powers could manage thankfully, but as fast as his legs could carry him, as he threw the door to the office open. 

Flew past the receptionist, past the other patients in the waiting room. He heard the door smack ( _crack_ ) loudly against the wall, heard a shout that might’ve been his name - and just kept going. 

He was running and practically flying down the stairs, taking them two or three or however many at a time that he could manage - might’ve stumbled on the third floor landing, but his blood was pumping, _roaring_ behind his ears now, screaming for him to get out, get out, _get out_ -

And then he was outside, and he was running, and he was screaming, and - 

(Bystanders were definitely staring, he was horrified to note - but noted in such a way that he felt completely out of control to stop.)

\- and he was crying, his hands squeezing on his head in a guilt-inducing pose but oh, could he not stop _that_ now, and he could hear himself with a litany of apologies pouring from his lips and pouring from his eyes. 

The dam had shattered and he was flooding out, ravaging everything in his path, and was pouring for his doctor, and for the mug, but for so much more as well. A ‘sorry’ to his family, a ‘sorry’ to Connie, to Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl, and his dad, and - to _Jasper_ and all the other Gems he had hurt, had almost hurt, had hurt indirectly with all his stupid ideas and, and, and -

His fingers wove themselves deep into his locks-

“Steven!” 

He looked up. 

Dr. A was standing there outside, on the edge of the parking lot. Her green cardigan was wrapped tight around her, but she was approaching carefully - 

\- and the image of the broken ( _ ~~shattered~~_ ) mug flashed in his mind -

“K-keep _away_ from me!” he yelled, finding his feet shuffling two steps back. She paused, before holding a hand out to him, and oh, there was no hiding the distraught look on her face. (He wondered if this had ever happened to her before, a patient running out - _well, the glowing part is probably new_ , he thought with a sense of hysteria- ) 

“Steven, please - I need you to calm down, okay? Can you practice your breathing techniques with me?” 

Her voice, to her credit, only shook slightly, but he shook his head - his breathing was ragged, and heavy, burning through his lungs with summer air, and there was no way he was getting that under control, no way he was getting anything under control, he was losing it, _losing it_ -

“Come on, Steven, you can do this! Come on, in, one, two -”

_“I don’t want to die!”_

She paused; he did not.

“I don’t want to, but it - it lately always _feels_ like I do! I always feel so bad, and it’s driving me nuts and I’m _sorry_ !! I’ve done so, _so much_ bad stuff and hurt so many people and I just keep hurting them - even more now that I feel bad and, and - “ he gulped, let out a sob. “I, I p-promise, I don’t _really_ want to die but it just, it just keeps happening because my stupid brain is _broken_ ! It’s _broken_ and I’m _sorry_ but you can’t fix me now -”

“That’s true.”

His tear-soaked face snapped up.

Her voice was strong, suddenly, confident in her normal tone - “that’s true, Steven, I _can’t_ fix you. But I can help _you_ fix _you.”_ She took a step forward. “I can help you with these feelings, with these thoughts - I can help you with your guilt, and help guide you through navigating all this. I can help you _change,_ Steven, for the better - didn’t you tell your one friend that?

He nodded.

“I can help you, Steven. Everyone - the Gems, your father, your friends, they all want to help you. But they can only help you _help yourself_.” She paused, let out a quiet sigh. “Of course, that all sounds so simple, and I’m not going to fool you - it’s not. You know that by now.”

She gestured around, to the edge of the parking lot they were standing in. Steven looked down at his feet, at the crisp morning grass brushing up against them. 

“It’s hard work, but Steven? You’ve worked so hard for other people your entire life - please, work hard for _yourself_ , now. “

“We’ve got your back.”

\---


	5. day 52

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven tries, and fills out some homework.

There were so many _different_ ways to help himself, it turned out. 

He was thankful for Dr. A’s guidance on the topic, that she was able to suggest things that she personally thought would work for him, but it honestly was a bit much at times. It seemed that there was a new worksheet or two each week now for him to take home and work on (regardless of whether he did them or not), and different sort of meditative mantras that they would practice during their sessions, looking for the right one that he could rely on to break him out of whatever negative spell he could find himself in later; and that was before they got into the actual therapy process _itself._

There was tons of advice for what he could do to keep his mood more afloat as well, and different ideas for schedules and routines to keep him from sliding into the depressive funk he had spent the previous month mostly wandering through -

(Because it turned out that sleeping in until four or five in the afternoon was, uh. Probably not helping his recovery after all? _Whoops._ )

\- and honestly, while it was a bit difficult to pull himself out of the funk he had been living in for the past month (or longer than that, if he thought about it, but that was something he was trying to _not_ do unsupervised) ... Steven found that the suggestions - they weren’t _bad_ , per se. 

Most of them were common enough sense, even if you weren’t trying to improve your stupid brain’s health. It was easy enough to pretend that he was making these changes, then, simply out of a desire to better himself, and to perhaps not focus as much on the whole recovery aspect of it, which was something he was well aware that he was having issues with. Which was kind of stupid of him, he had to admit - and oh, Dr. A was quick to admonish him for that train of thought, because no Steven, it’s not _stupid_ , you’re actively working on rewriting portions of how your brain’s used to thinking in order to live a healthier life, and blah blah _blah._

Still though, sometimes it felt like they were trying everything under the sun, that Dr. A was pulling out everything in her bag of psychological tricks in order to try to patch him all together.

And it was a lot. 

\---

 _'Eat a healthy meal_ ' was one that he found to be the easiest to adapt to; he had been doing fairly well at it in the months prior to his meltdown, and he had to admit, a diet subsisting of ice cream and cheese puffs didn’t really leave him feeling all too hot anyways. 

Weirdly enough, Pearl turned out to be a great assistant in that goal, ever since she caught him digging through the pantry and let it slip to her that he was trying to eat a vegetable or two - almost too good, really. Despite the Gem’s well-known personal aversion to human food, Steven had found a decent supply of spinach, broccoli and - baby bok choy? In his fridge the next morning, along with a list stuck to the front of it listing various nutritional benefits, and vitamin amounts, and did he know that antioxidant-rich foods were particularly good for the brain, but also that carbohydrates were also good for low serotonin levels? 

“I didn’t, no,” he had replied, inspecting the rather large carrot that had been shoved into the fruits and veggies drawer - he wondered briefly if she had gotten these from the grocers in Beach City, or if Peridot’s horticultural class had been experimenting with growing vegetables again. 

She had given him a knowing smile then, had patted him on the back (carefully, almost to where he didn’t feel it, but he was proud of himself for not flinching away regardless). “It turns out human nutrition is a surprisingly complex subject,” she said in a sing-song voice, “but also well-documented - let me know if you want me to pick up a book or two for you on it.”

\---

 _Go for a walk_ was another suggestion of Dr. A’s that turned out to be pretty simple to follow - almost distressingly so for him, which she had had the foresight to warn him about.

“Get out of the house, experience some fresh air - it’s amazing what the outdoors can do for your mood, if you’ve been cooped up inside for too long. Although,” and she had given him a knowing look, “you have to be in control of it, too. It’s not the same as, say - running away, you know? Let someone know where you’re going if you can, _especially_ if you aren’t feeling great - don’t just disappear on them.” 

(After what he had done a few weeks ago, he had the conscious to at least look a _bit_ embarrassed by the warning.)

So, he gave it a try - pulled himself out of bed one late morning, even with every bone in his body screaming at him to go back or to hide under his comforter again and just, go back to sleep or go back to staring at the walls, or just do _nothing_ at all. Instead, he had gotten up, changed from one pair of pajamas (that he had maybe spent the entirety of the previous day in, but who was checking?) into a pair of sweatpants and a clean shirt, and had headed downstairs. 

“Hey Garnet,” he had said to the Gem, who was browsing through one of the stacks of books Pearl had grabbed for him. (He had flipped through a handful of them- some seemed pretty useful, but others were almost distressingly off-topic. A good effort, though.) “I’m, ah, gonna go on a walk, okay?”

She turned to look at him, visage hidden behind her three-pronged glasses, but had given him a short nod paired with a warm smile. “Have a good one, Steven.”

...so he went out onto the beach.

It seemed… kind of useless, at first; he grumbled as his feet slipped in the sand, and the sun was just a hair too bright out, and the wind was - well, it was nonexistent, and left him feeling hot and tired. He considered turning around a handful of times, just going back to the house and up the stairs and collapsing into bed - but for some reason, he kept going. 

And after a bit, the heat didn’t feel so oppressive, and the waves sounded pretty nice crashing against the shore; he took his sandals off and dipped his toes into the tide for a moment, took a second to look at the different shells and whatnot on the beach, like he had when he had first moved in with the Gems and everything had seemed so bright, and so new. 

Things were obviously a bit different, now. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t still appreciate these things.

When he returned to the house a bit later, it was with a small, shiny shell tucked into his pockets, and with a grin on his face. 

\---

While the more practical pieces of advice were easy enough to follow, the worst by far was the worksheets. The homework. The _charts_. Because oh, there were charts - or ‘mood sheets’, she had called them, as she handed him a stack of different papers during one of their better sessions. 

“The thing is, sometimes our brains tend to run away from us,” she had said in her calm, knowledgeable tones, “and that running can lead us into distorted patterns of thinking. They’re very common, and most people do them without even knowing it - partially why I think a lot more people could use this info.” Dr. A gave him a grin, before pointing to the top page of the packet. “Things like ‘black and white’ thinking, for example - where things are either totally awesome and the best and fine, or if they’re not, then they’re the absolute worst. Or ‘emotional reasoning’ - thinking that because you feel something, it must be factually true.” 

Steven groaned a bit at that one, resting his chin on his hand. “Huh,” he murmured, “that’d be less of a - a fake pattern of thinking, if my powers weren’t, you know. Tied to my feelings and all.”

She chuckled a bit at that, surprising him a little. “You mentioned that before, and it may be true, but at the same time - it’s kind of a matter of energy? Not in the literal sense, but in - oh, you know. Like…” She tapped her pencil against her own packet of papers. “For example, say you were thinking that everyone was mad at you, because you were upset at yourself. And so you began to distance yourself from them, began to treat them differently, maybe even got mad at them for ‘being upset’.” Tap, tap. “And it ends up making your friends and family _actually_ upset with you, not for the reason you thought - but it still came true in the end - that’s a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, not proof that you were right. That’s an example of ‘emotional reasoning’ taking control and running away with the situation.”

He suddenly found it difficult to meet her eyes. “Oh.” 

“Now, luckily for us, there’s always a way to counteract these thought patterns. Going back to our example, if you thought everyone was mad at you because you were upset at yourself, what would be a way you could stop that?”

Steven shrugged. “I dunno, uh… don’t do anything to make them upset?”

She tutted at him, though still with a smile. “And what was it that made them upset?”

“Gosh, I don’t... you didn’t mention - oh!” He sat up a bit straighter, as he looked down at the paper again. “Find out why they’re mad in the first place!”

“Find out _if_ they’re even upset, but yes.” Dr. A smiled at him, and he felt the rosy feeling in his chest return. “Most of these issues can be solved by simple communication - check with others, see if what you’re seeing is correct. You have a pretty strong support network around you, Steven, and you should take advantage of that.”

\---

Which brought them to the mood charts themselves. Conceptually, they made perfect sense - if someone wasn’t immediately available to talk to (or if he didn’t want to talk to anyone at all), write down what he was feeling when he was feeling it, and try to work it out. 

The application itself, of course, was trickier. Usually.

On this particular day, Steven could tell he was in a funk - had felt like it since he had woken up that morning (or had it already been afternoon by then?), and had just laid there in bed. One of the Gems had poked their head up to see if he was doing ok before they headed out, which he had waved off by saying that he was fine, don’t worry about him, have a good one. And believing him (or not, but wanting to respect his ability to make that call for himself, which he appreciated at the very least because at least they had stepped off from treating him like a _baby_ , and- ) they had left him there.

He wasn’t sure how long ago that was, but it had been a while - the shadows, already having been long for a number of hours, were starting to overtake the room entirely.

And still he lay there, watching the fan on his ceiling lazily spin round. 

_Ugh._ After all this time, after all these therapy sessions and all the work everyone else was putting into making him feel better - this was how he repaid them? He was such a … a _failure_. 

… or, at least, that’s how he felt. 

_But was that true?_

It was like a jolt went through him, a surge of adrenaline as the solution appeared in his mind - he knew how to deal with this feeling! Kinda. And it still took him a few minutes to get out of bed, to walk over to where he had dropped his bag the night before and to dig out the now slightly crumpled worksheets from Dr. A. He sat down on the corner of his bed, grabbing a book from where it had fallen on the floor, clicked his pen and -

_Okay, Steven Universe. Let’s see what we’ve learned._

He had apparently grabbed one of the more elaborate sheets, but he remembered going over this version of the thought record in the most detail. First things first was the date and time - probably useful if he had actually, uh, filled any of these out prior. _Whoops_. He jotted down the day, and a quick glance at his Cookie Cat clock said it was almost 7 PM.

Cool, cool. That didn’t make him feel worse at all.

Next, was ‘situation’ - or, as the text below the header asked, ‘what led to the unpleasant situation?’. That was a bit of a head scratcher, at first - he hadn’t really done… anything, all day? Had just laid in bed and felt time pass him by, and wasted a perfectly good Tuesday is what it was. He tapped his pen against the paper for a second, before shrugging and skipping to the next column - there really didn’t appear to be a problem, really.

Except that then the next column was for ‘automatic thoughts’ - how he felt about the situation. Here was where he knew what he could write, and the only limitation was just how much writing he could fit in the narrow column itself. He had to be precise, it seemed; so, he paused, thinking about how to word the pit in the center of his chest. Why was he upset?

“ ‘Because I’m a failure,’ ” he repeated quietly to himself, and wrote that down. And then he looked back at the previous column. “ And ‘I haven’t done anything today, besides lay around and feel bad.’ “

Looking at it down on the paper, it certainly seemed… _harsh._

Huh.

Next column was for rating the intensity of the emotion he was experiencing. Considering he had been knocked off his feet by it for the day, Steven found himself writing a 100% under that header - before scribbling it out. No, no, he had _definitely_ felt worse, this was nothing. 10%, then. 

“But you haven’t _done_ anything today,” he reminded himself, and scratched that number out as well. He thought for a moment longer before deciding on a 47%, and moved on.

‘Adaptive response’ was next - ‘which thinking style did you engage in’ was the question. Sighing, he went over to his bag and pulled out the original list of distortions he had been given, glancing over them to see if any of them resonated. 

And - and it was almost embarrassing, reading them, because it looked like _everything_ could be applied to his situation. Filtering - _he was definitely only seeing the bad in this situation_ . Black and white thinking - _he was a complete failure._ Overgeneralization - _he slept in this one time, failed to get out of bed this one day, and now he was a complete failure._

It was… it was kind of scary, almost. How long, often had he let these distortions mess him up? He thought for a moment about writing down ‘everything’ in that column, before setting on ‘black and white thinking’. He could always discuss this more later, if Dr. A wanted to look at these. 

From there, the rest of the worksheet came easily enough - it called for evidence, and try as he may, Steven… couldn’t really think of anything that was strong enough to write down, nothing that was concrete to put into words. And that’s what this was all about, right? Putting things down into stone. An alternate explanation - _he was upset over wasting his day._ It didn’t make him a failure to mess up just this one time, it just meant he had a rough day, and he could come back and have an easier day the next one! 

It was - it was easy, for sure, to fill this out. Steven couldn’t believe he hadn’t done it before.

The last question on the sheet was asking him to re-evaluate his mood, to reconsider his previous thoughts. Did he still feel like a failure? “‘No’,” he wrote down. 

Did he still feel bad?

“‘Kinda’.” 

And that was that. He stared down at his thoughts, laid out clearly before him, showing how simple it was for him to resolve what he was feeling. And he felt - he felt -

Steven reread it a few more times before sighing, taking it over to the top of his dresser, where his so-called ‘self-care candle’ was sitting. With a flick of his lighter it was lit, and the calming scent of eucalyptus and mint filled his nose. He sighed and set down the sheet, eyes flickering between it and the small flames growing infront of him.

He had laid out his distortions, clear as day, and yet - it didn’t solve the problem completely, which Steven kind of hated, to be honest. It didn’t give him back his Tuesday, didn’t get him actively out of the house. His chest still ached like it had ached since he had woken up, and he still dreaded what he would tell the Gems once they got home in a bit. 

No, he still kind of felt bad about the whole situation, even after laying it out.

But also -

\- _clearer._

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you once again to everyone who's liked, commented, shared this fic, im still completely thrown by the reception ive been getting and its truly made this difficult time much easier. big hugs for u all. 
> 
> thought records are a super useful technique found in cognitive behavioral therapy, which is frequently used for people with depression, anxiety, and ptsd. i used the one that i'd been given as an example, and you can find it here: http://www.allaboutdepression.com/workshops/CBT_Workshop/Automatic_Thought_Record.pdf
> 
> also - bonus art for this chapter!   
> \- steven and pearl talking - https://cryinghour.tumblr.com/post/614313448066646016/heres-steven-and-pearl-talking-about-a-carrot  
> \- steppin on the beach - https://cryinghour.tumblr.com/post/614338178592178176/things-were-obviously-a-bit-different-now-but-it
> 
> thank u all!!!!


	6. day 74

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven talks to himself.
> 
> (cw: dark thoughts that could be considered suicidal)

“And I just - argh! Why am I so stupid sometimes?!”

Across the room from him, Dr. A hemmed; Steven looked up for a moment to catch her eye, as she tapped her pen against the side of her head.

“ _O-oh,”_ he stammered, before uncurling his fists from where they had habitually buried themselves in his locks. He had been pretty good about not pulling his hair when he was stressed out (especially at himself), but he still caught himself slipping into it every so often in his therapy sessions - particularly when he got agitated. “Sorry.”

“No worries, Steven,” she said with a smile, and pulled her grey cardigan closer around herself. The golden light of the sun shone through the blinds. “But let’s think about how you’re framing this all, okay?”

It was one of his rare afternoon therapy appointments - most often they tried to schedule him in in the mornings, but since they were aiming for frequency more importantly, sometimes they shuffled him around in the day. It was hardly a big struggle for Steven to accommodate the change - after all, his schedule was overwhelmingly free, had been for the past few months. For the most part it was the same as the mornings - sometimes even better, if he had had a particularly rough night the night before. 

Sometimes, however, he would plan out what he would say to Dr. A, would go over his thought record so many times and review what he had gone through since his last appointment, and it would - would elevate him, pre-agitate him. And he’d go in to the session already upset, more often than not at himself, and they would have to spend the beginning half (if not the entire session) getting him back down to calm levels, getting him to where he could actually talk about what he wanted to talk about - and then the buzzer would go off way too soon and it was time to go back home. 

(In those circumstances he didn’t usually immediately go home - but he had the foresight now to text one of the Gems about it.) 

Unfortunately, that was what had happened today, and so by the time 4 PM had rolled around, he could feel his head buzzing faintly, could feel himself tense up, coiled internally like a snake ready to pounce. His weekly recap had quickly dissolved into a rant of self-deprecation once again. 

“Regardless of whether or not this random bystander, who you probably won’t ever see again, appeared to be caught off-guard by the display of your powers, I don’t quite agree with the conclusion you’re coming to here about yourself, Steven. What about this in particular justifies the usage of that harshness?” 

He gave a shrug.

She gave him a shrug back, exaggerated ever so slightly - her sign to him to use his words. _Ugh._

“I, I don’t know. That it was stupid of me? I, I’ve always done stupid stuff like that, my entire life - I forget that a lot of visitors to Beach City don’t visit knowing about the Gems, and this was just another case of me _hurting_ someone - even if I didn’t mean to! Even if it was just a little, I just -” He let out a harsh exasperated huff, crossing his arms over his chest. “I _just_ -”

“You want to hear my opinion on this, Steven?” she interrupted, a rare thing from his therapist - she tended to let him at least get everything off his chest, and only really stopped him if she felt he was really spiraling out of control. (And wow, then, he really managed to work himself up _that_ much already? Great job, Steven...) “I think you’re being way too harsh on yourself. Let’s try something here…” She leaned over to her desk, pulled out her spiral-bound book full of reference materials and flipped through the pages for a second before stopping, glancing it over - and then holding out the book for him to look at. 

He took it into his hands after a moment, gently, and glanced down at the page entitled - ‘Talking To Yourself’?

“Now, of course a lot of people think of ‘talking to yourself’ as a sign of something being wrong, stereotypically so,” Dr. A continued, “but it can really be a good meditative practice, a good way to coach yourself out of bad thought patterns. We’re going to try it in a slightly different way today, though - because today I’m ordering you to be _nice_ to yourself.” She gave him a small smirk. “So, Steven, what would you say to yourself if you could talk to yourself right now?”

\---

The practice had been - it had been good, really. Useful.

He had struggled with it at first, of course, feeling ridiculous, and to be honest - as he went on, that feeling really just lessened a little, didn’t go away completely. But with his therapist’s coaching, he had practiced being gentle with himself. Had practiced how to reprimand himself about mistakes without being _mean_ about it, how to apologize and how to forgive himself. That last one had been hard, something that he was surprised to realize he didn’t really do all that often at all, but he left the session feeling sheepish, but better.

It was pretty embarrassing, in a way - he felt more like a kid than ever, having to re-learn basic things like that again. But it seemed useful, another skill-set for him to add to his belt of techniques and tricks for combating his own mind. He was already verbally abusing himself in his mind, silently bringing himself down - but by saying it out loud he could hear the own bite in his words, and he could make things a bit easier on himself, to be more gentle. To show himself some care.

And it gave him an idea.

\---

It was a - a weird idea, he thought to himself, and maybe wouldn’t work at all - but as he placed his hand on the door’s entryway and it parted open, he felt a bit of excitement at the prospect as well.

_Rose’s Room._

Or, if he wanted to be combative, it was _his_ room now, but that was a piece of his and his Mom’s shared gem identity that he was fine with conceding to her fully. His experiences with the extra-dimensional space had been pretty few, and not really any of them super good either, and he figured that he had inherited enough from her over the years (her sword, her shield, her stresses) that you know, it was fine. She could keep the damn room in her name. 

Didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to use it, though. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

It was just… intimidating. One of the last times he had been in there was when he was younger and confused, and lost - thinking his mother was a _shatterer_ (and oh, did he not want to think about _that_ conflicting information more than he needed to) and him, just a young boy trying to deal with the burden of duty, the heavy mantle placed upon his too small shoulders all too eager to embrace his new responsibility.

Oh, if he could only talk to himself then, warn him about such a wish. _You don’t want that, Steven. You don’t know it yet, but please -_

_You don’t._

And maybe he could - he stepped into the clouded Room quietly, doing so later at night when all the Gems had gone into their own spaces. He was planning on just talking to himself, but maybe he could talk to a version of himself when he was younger, too? He wasn’t entirely sure how that’d go, since it wasn’t like - it wasn’t like any of this was about to be _real_ , but a big thing Steven had picked up on the therapy process was that it was all about perception, and projection, and man. It would be kind of fun to try to explain this to his therapist, but maybe she’d be excited by it, too? Would smile, and say “that’s a smart idea, Steven”, and he’d get a free pass for the session or something like that -

Man, he should’ve tried this earlier, if that lay in store!

He felt the door behind him sliding shut, and poofing out of existence.

\---

The Room itself looked much the same as it always did, soft pink clouds rolling across the floor and sky in equal tranquil proportion, as far as the eye could see. It was peaceful, it was - it was nice, as it usually was. Steven took a few steps in, looked around, and let out the breath he had been holding, excitement thrumming through his veins. 

He was ready. 

“Ok, Room - I’d like to talk to myself.”

The Room reacted almost instantly, the clouds on the ground shifting as if blown by his breath - instead of just poofing a clone of himself into existence, however, they swirled together, slowly building into a form. It was as if they were reacting to his powers being still diminished, still being exhausted, but he didn’t mind so long as it worked - and yet, as they swirled higher, he felt a tick of frustration in his mind, too.

“Ok, uh, any day now,” he muttered, crossing his arms across his chest. It was as if the room was thinking, confused by his request, and it reminded him briefly of when he had been trying to stream _Dogcopter 5_ the other night and the movie had began buffering right in the middle of his favorite action scene. The room was loading, loading, the clouds growing taller, and taller, and -

And too tall- taller than him, and they took form.

And _oh_ \- he had a split second before they had finished that he didn’t know what was happening, that he wondered why the room was making himself so much taller, why was he taller than himself normally, and then - it occurred to him the mistake, the confusion cleared up just as - _poof_.

“Hello, Steven,” his mom said to him, with a soft, sad smile.

He blinked, once, twice. 

“You’re not me,” he said, dumbly.

“I’m not, no,” Rose Quartz replied. “But maybe you wanted to talk to me?”

And Steven found himself - found himself mad, suddenly. _Furious._

“No, I _don’t-_ ” he stammered, turning around to glare fully at the empty expanse of pink clouds around them. He gestured wildly at the space, his voice echoing in the seemingly endless chamber around them. “ I, this isn’t what I asked for at _all_ ! I’m supposed to talk to _myself_ , not some fake version of my - my dead _mom_!!” 

“Steven-” the projection of Rose started behind him. 

“No!!” He whipped around, angrily jabbing a finger at the taller woman. “You’re _not real_ , we’ve had this discussion before! I don’t want to talk to you, after _everything_ you’ve done, after everything you put me through - why do you even look like that?” He scoffed loudly, taking another step towards her shocked face. “I _know_ now that you weren’t even a Quartz at all - you, you were just pretending because you didn’t want to be _Pink Diamond_ anymore! You were a, a _fraud_ , and a _fake_ , and - and a -”

She stared back at him. He suddenly found that he couldn’t look at her. 

“ -a, a _fraud_ like… like me. Oh -”

Steven stared down at his feet, as the adrenaline coursing through his veins seemed to stutter to a stop, as the anger dropped out and left an aching cold in his chest. _This is why_ , he thought dully, the fight suddenly sapped out of him as quickly as it had arisen.

_This is why the Room showed me you._

“Because I hate myself now like I - I hate _you_. I’m angry at myself the same way - “

He felt ill. Drained.

He fell to his knees; they made little puffs of cloud fall up where he landed, made the edge of her ethereal dress wave ever so slightly. He stared down at the hem, his fists hanging limply at his sides; an invisible breeze kicked up ever so slightly, or maybe it was just his imagination.

“I’m angry, and… maybe a part of why I’m angry is, is because I _can’t_ be angry at you, and it’s not fair. Because the other Gems - they still love you, Dad still loves you. And I’m just - I think I do too? But I’m just so, so _mad_ at you all the time now, as well -”

He blinked hard. Felt his eyes growing wet. 

“Because I’m - I’m _sick_ , Mom!”

And with that, the tears were pouring now - a literal fountain of wasted healing potential rolling down his face, down his cheeks and falling into the soft clouds below. 

“I’m _sick_ and my brain is, it’s broken - because of everything you put me through by _not being here_ ! I had to, I had to _be_ you for so many people, I didn’t get to be myself for _me_ , a-and it’s… “ He took a loud, gasping breath of air. “I barely know who I am anymore, who Steven Universe is - I don’t know if I really _ever_ did! A-and, and I’m working hard at getting to know myself more, I have to, and sometimes I just - I just don’t _like_ that person, after all! Sometimes, I really _hate_ him, too, even - sometimes I just - “

He leaned forward, pressed his forehead against the clouds. Wished that it hurt, for a moment.

“- sometimes I wish you _hadn’t_ left everyone and that you hadn’t had _me_ in the first place!”

It was… 

It was not a new realization of his, certainly. It was a thought he had been secretly harboring for- for weeks, and months, and perhaps even in a way - years? But feeling it spill out of his lips, hearing it echo out loud - it had seemingly sapped all the fight out of him, as horror replaced the anger he had felt so strongly a moment before. 

And _oh_ did it hurt, his chest aching horribly as he sobbed, curling onto his side - just a crying, stupid husk of a boy on the ground, at his mother’s feet.

“Steven,” his mom - or rather, the room’s projection of his mom - said softly, staring down at him with wide, shining eyes (that shined with unshed tears, he noted with a sort of quiet, dulled horror). “Do you really wish that? Do you really wish I hadn’t had you?”

Did he? After everything he had been through, and done for the world, for the galaxy - did he really wish he didn’t exist? 

“No,” he murmured with a loud sniffle, trying to palm away some of his tears in vain. “N-no, not really, n-not.. Not completely? I... I just - “

A sob caught in the back of his throat, choking him for a moment. 

“ I - I just -”

The figure of Rose knelt down next to his stuttering self, her knees at the top of his head. He rolled onto his back, fisted his hand into his hair for a moment before slapping it on top of his own face, because he already just _hurt_ so much, he couldn’t hurt any more. 

“Sometimes, it’s just so… so heavy, you know? I have to n-not only be a Crystal Gem, or a Diamond, o-or whatever everyone else _w-wants_ me to be… now I have t-to also be. I have to be _me,_ and that’s so…”

“Difficult?”

His mom gave him a soft smile, upside down in his blurry vantage point. She blinked her dark eyes and the tears in them were shed, rolling down her soft face and glittering like jewels. “It is difficult, Steven, but it’s the most rewarding thing out there, to be yourself.”

“For so many years, I was forced to be a Diamond, suffering with the others… suffering, even though we didn’t know we were hurting back then. When I came to Earth, when I chose to be Rose instead, I… I had to learn who that was, from scratch. And it...” She paused, sighed, gave a knowing chuckle as she smiled down at him.

“Well, you know better than anyone how difficult that is, Steven. How difficult loving yourself truly can be. But you’re not alone, you know?”

He choked once again, let out a hurt cry; Rose just smiled at him.

“You have the Gems - they love you. You have your dad - he loves you. Connie, your friends - they all love you.” She paused for a moment, before placing a soft palm against the side of his head, where it stung the most usually from where he would pull on his locks.

“I love you too, Steven, even if I can’t be there with you like you want me to be. So please - can you love yourself too?” 

Steven found himself sitting up suddenly then, because - it was childish, he knew, but he wanted - and he wrapped his arms around his mom, holding the back of her white gown in his fists, and he _wailed_. Rose held onto him tightly, as tight as the Room would allow her to, and he sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. 

\---

“I hate crying, you know,” he said, the sound muffled in her shoulder, “but I seem to be doing it a lot lately, huh.”

He didn’t know how long he had been there in the Room, being held by its projection of his mother - but his head ached something horrible, throbbing in his sinuses. His face and eyes were certainly red, and they hurt too from all the salt on them - it was kind of funny, in a way. Normally his tears healed others, healed himself, and yet his crying session left him feeling like a husk.

Rose sighed softly, the smile in her voice. “It’s okay to cry, Steven. Your tears are proof that you’ve survived so much, that you’re _alive_ and _human_ \- they’re special, and not just because they heal others.” 

Steven let out a sniffling laugh, before at long last pulling back from his mom; she rested a pale hand against his shoulder as he wiped his eyes uselessly with the back of his hand. “Yeah, but I sure wish I had some tissues -”

_Poof!_

“O-oh, right,” he mumbled, grabbing a fistful of them out of the now present box. 

\---

And later, much later, he walked out of the Room.

It was late now, probably the middle of the night - he let out a loud yawn as he stretched (his back was _stiff_ ), and stepped over the warp pad, which he could easily see because the light was on in the living room, and -

“Oh, Garnet,” he croaked, his voice painfully hoarse. “Isn’t it, uh, like three in the morning?”

“I could say the same for you,” was the Gem’s cool response from where she was standing by the stairs. “It looks like you had a rather productive meeting in the Room, though.”

 _Oh, of course_. Steven chuckled, giving her a shrug - and then a hug, which he liked to think maybe caught her a bit off guard. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “it was - it was a lot. But I think it helped.” 

“Good. We love you, Steven - though I believe it’s time someone got to bed.” 

He smiled, letting go and yawning once again. Rose had been - _he_ had been right, had in the corner of his mind known it all along. But it was still nice to hear it.

“Love you too."

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, a million hearts and hugs to everyone whos read, liked, reblogged, shared this fic - love u all. 
> 
> my favorite SU classic episode i think is 'storm in the room', so this is kind of an almost-post-SUF version of that one.


	7. day 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven cleans, and watches a movie.
> 
> (cw: panic attack, disassociation, briefest mention of self-harm)

Steven, who knew himself enough to know he was a bit of a worrier - he _hated_ making others worry.

“It’s a normal part of the human experience, Steven,” was the response his therapist had given, when he had expressed that concern to her one day - his concern that everyone he loved was upset over how he had been upset, and it was - was _upsetting_. 

“Try to not dwell on their worry, and instead use it as a reminder of just how much they care for you. What you’re going through, what you’ve been through is something that is cause for worry - _should_ have been cause for worry all along, if I’m being honest.” Dr. A tapped her pencil against her notes with a pensive look on her face. “And at the same time, though, when others worry - that’s their decision, you know? They make that choice for themselves; it’s not something to beat yourself up over.” 

Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try, though! _Ha._

Sighing, he thumbed through his phone’s call history - saw the conversation he had had with Connie the previous afternoon. _1:04:35 -_ he had spent over an hour chatting with her, had talked until the sun had set in the sky but before the stars had fully come out. All things considered, it had been a good chat; he had been in control, in the right headspace to ask her for help - for a distraction. 

“I’m sorry, I just - I don’t want to talk about it,” he had sniffled to her over the phone, gripping it tightly with a sort of desperation to him, “I don’t want to _think_ about it anymore.” He had given her what was surely the fakest smile he had given anyone ever, then. “So, so can we talk about what you’re up to? Please?” 

And Connie, bless her heart, had done just that. 

Even though she was worried - had told him as much when their video chat had connected only to show Steven’s completely wrecked visage, and it would’ve been stupid for him not to know he was going to worry her with that - she had nodded firmly, had launched into her own tale of school, and how dumb her assignment for AP Physics was - had he ever heard of people throwing octopi onto an ice skating rink, because that was apparently one of her homework problems! And her Honors Gov-and-Econ class was turning into something of a circus, because her classmates found out they could distract their teacher for _half an hour_ by asking him to talk about some place called “wall mart”. 

“Wait, wait - why does he hate the wall store so much?” he had said with a smile, causing her to groan and roll her eyes dramatically. 

“It’s not a _wall_ store, Steven - it’s a type of big box store they have in big cities, that sell everything for cheap! But they don’t pay their employees very well, and - “ She put on a fake voice, scrunching up her face in what he assumed was an imitation of her teacher, “ _‘they represent the errors of modern day, late-stage capitalism!_ ’” 

He couldn’t help but laugh. 

“I mean, they do, don’t get me wrong - but we were supposed to be learning about the different marginal tax rates across the States, and we still have our test on the chapter next week - and you _know_ he’s gonna forget that he didn’t teach us everything!” Her tone became even more exasperated, her eyes narrowing in clear frustration. “And I mean, I have the book, I can learn it all myself but I’ve got cram school next week too, and we have a ton of questions each night for English to do, and, and!” 

She groaned loudly, flopping her head forward onto her textbook. “There’s just not enough _time_ , Steven - and, to top it all off, I think I’ve got a case of _early-onset Senioritis._ ”

“Hey, hey- “ he sat up on his bed, rubbing away some of the residual tears he had on his face as he leaned in. “Connie, listen - I don’t know what that is, but I think you’re maybe working too hard again. Why don’t you come over tomorrow for a - a movie night, and we can just hang? Plus,” and he gave her a grin that felt infinitely easier than it had a moment ago, “if you have any history questions, I’m pretty sure Pearl remembers it all like it was yesterday.” 

\---

After a bit of convincing, she had finally agreed to take a break over the weekend, and was coming over! Great!

And the next morning - late morning if his clock was right - that’s when he realized he might’ve made a bit of a mistake, though. Because his room? Was _trashed_. 

He had told Pearl and Garnet to not pick up after him the other day, when he had returned from one of his sessions highly agitated to find his socks neatly folded on his bed and it was just - he wasn’t a _kid_ , he could do his own _laundry_ now, he didn’t need their help and it was just, so _condescending_ of them, really! And they had given each other a look before nodding, and apologizing, and saying that they’d leave it all to him. And so they hadn’t been in his room for a week, now, and he - he had been doing good at the beginning of the week, but had gotten progressively worse as time went on, it felt like, and then his session yesterday had thrown him off entirely, and - 

And now he had Connie coming over in just under two hours, and she was going to think he _was_ a kid! A baby, even, who couldn’t keep his _one_ room decent. She was going to come in and know that he was doing awful, and she was going to worry, and she was going to stress out over him and then maybe even get a C on her test on tax rates - that was _unacceptable_.

He had to hide the evidence.

So he began to clean - or, rather, began to shove things into his drawers. At first he took the time to fold his clean clothes (why they were out in the first place, he didn’t really remember) and put them away neatly, but then he got distracted by the dust on his shelf, and he hadn’t really looked through that book in a while, and he was kind of tired still - and then he looked at the clock and _man_ , did time always go by that fast? And it became a sort of frantic hiding game, where he grabbed all the bags of snacks and rushed them downstairs, and he accidentally spilled some of the cheese puffs and then stepped on them, so he had to get the dust pan, and - 

He glanced at his phone. _Five minutes to go_ \- and with horror, he felt his eyes prickle. Because what did he even have to be upset over? Connie was trying so hard, and was actually struggling, and he was just upset because - because his brain was broken? Because he had to _talk_ about his problems once a week or so?

“No, no, no,” he whispered to himself, and he tugged on the side of his head once, firmly. “You’re fine, it’s fine, it’s _Connie_ .” Connie, who had seen him at his worst, at most of his all-time lows - she wasn’t going to care that much if he was lazy, and a loser, and a _mess_ , and he wasn’t going to show her that side of himself anyways, so it was okay. 

He straightened out his comforter on his bed, forcing a smile onto his face. It felt incredibly strenuous.

“You’re _fine_ , Steven.”

\---

“Hey, Steven!” Connie said with a smile as she walked in, a whole five minutes later, a backpack slung over her shoulder. She was dressed for their warm spring weather, wearing a light pink blouse and was looking - she was looking _nice_ , and Steven felt his heart lighten up a hair just looking at her. He couldn’t help but to give her a giant hug, squeezing her tightly (maybe too tightly, if he had to admit it, and maybe a smidge too long, but -) and for a moment it was like he was stepping out into the sun after a storm. 

(Never mind that he hadn’t been outside today at all - ) 

“Hey to you, too,” he smiled, leaning back a bit but still keeping his hands on her back. He nodded at her book bag. “What’d you bring with you? Not Econ work l I hope, as this is a strictly no study zone! For, uh, for at least a while, at least.”

Connie laughed, swinging the bag around to her front and unzipping it. “Nah, forgot Mr. Mayter’s lack of lessons - I got the _goods_. My parents hit up J-Mart the other day, and I picked up a bunch of candy and snacks I can’t read the labels on - I figured we could parse our way through them during our movie-strava-ganza.” 

Gosh, he _loved_ her. 

He could feel his face light up as he picked up a pack of some candies - he assumed, anyways - that had some honeydews on them. “Well, then - right after you, madame?” he laughed with a bow, gesturing for her to head up the stairway into his (definitely not neat enough but passable for now) room; she laughed, gave him a mock bow of her own, and headed up, him trailing after.

\---

Things got… a bit tricky, after that, though.

Because for some reason, Steven found that he couldn’t quite relax in his room. Maybe it was because he knew how it had looked not even two hours prior, how it had looked all week - he found himself nervously checking the corners, shuffling a loose sandal under his desk as he went to sit down on his bed. 

“Huh,” Connie said as she flopped down next to him, “it smells kind of like a spa in here!”

His cheeks flushed, and he scratched the back of his head. Oh, right. “Uh... yeah, it’s probably the candles. I’ve been burning them a lot - Dr. A says that they could help with my mood. Is that weird?”

She laughed, gave him a teasing grin. “No, silly - it’s really nice! Mom’s kinda sensitive to smells, so she prefers if I don’t have any that are scented, but who doesn’t like candles?” She elbowed him lightly in the side. “C’mon, Steven. What are we watching today?”

He blinked. 

“O-oh, right,” he nodded at her, shuffling off his bed and padding over to where his collection of tapes sat next to his TV. “Well, we have quite an exquisite selection, today - I’ve got the newest _Green Island Gargantia_ , subbed just for you -” She snorted. It had been a teensy bit of a debate point between them. “- and, oh, here! Amethyst brought these up from her room, too, they’re kind of old but I’m sure there’s something interesting in there? Maybe? She’s, uh, been known to collect some weird stuff too, as you know...” 

Connie hemmed and hawed, chin in her hands as she looked at the collection pieces in his hands. “That’s putting it mildly - remember _Bug Task Force V?”_ She groaned at the memory, rolling her eyes- before her face lit up a bit, and she leaned forward towards the edge of his bed, pointing. “Oo, I haven’t seen that one yet - it’s out already on tape?”

He looked down at the tape she was talking about - _Dogcopter 6._

Blink, blink. 

“O-oh, uh. Yeah, it’s out,” he said, giving what he was sure was an unconvincing smile - it felt like a grimace. “It’s, uh, it’s not very - we can watch that one later? It’s kind of weird,” and he was praying that he wasn’t turning pink, because it felt like his skin was _buzzing_ , could hear it starting between his ears. 

Connie blinked back at him, maybe gave him a shrug. “When isn’t _Dogcopter_ weird? But sure, if you’d rather hold off -” She rolled onto her back, her dark hair splaying over the bed’s edge like a waterfall. “I’ll let you pick, then.” 

Steven turned away, looked down at his tapes. They - there were a lot of them, and he suddenly found it - difficult, to parse through them, to really _read_ the covers. It was as if the words were going through his brain without sticking at all - like they were the bags of snacks Connie had brought them, written in a different language, and the shapes and colors just seemed to blend together in a swirl of colors (pink, and white and yellow and blue -) and then suddenly, he was aware that he was just - just standing there, like a _weirdo_ , just staring -

And so he grabbed the top one and popped it in, not even reading the label but hoping it was a good one. Hopefully. 

He could feel Connie’s gaze on him; he gave her another grin, a _fraud_ grin, and shook his head. “Sorry, uh - let’s see how this one goes?”

\---

“Okay, _how_ is she not freaking out over there being a lion in the city?” Connie said with a laugh. “I mean, most people in cities only see them in zoos….”

Steven... might have laughed. He wasn’t sure. 

(He could hear the buzzing so loud now, so much louder than the movie itself, and he felt awful because he knew Connie was looking forward to this, to sharing this experience with him but he just couldn’t focus at all on it, and he was just - just being so _selfish_ , couldn’t he do this one thing for her? Couldn’t he just -)

“Hey, Steven? You there?”

He blinked. “Sorry, zoned out for a sec,” he mumbled, focusing his eyes in on her concerned face. “What’s up?”

Sighing, she stood up for a second, and gestured to where _City Lions_ was playing still - or, at least the video was. The audio, however, was completely muffled by - by an incredibly loud droning noise, like swarms of bees were trapped inside the TV. “I think something’s wrong with the tape,” she murmured, “hold on, let me take a look at it-”

And there was a moment, then, as Connie moved to walk towards the TV, that it occurred to Steven that this was - was probably a bad idea, and he blinked (and his eyes felt _so_ dry now, painfully so, and he couldn’t see clearly - ) and could hear himself saying now, or maybe it was a shout - “wait -”

Connie stopped, turned to look at him. “Steven?”

\- and the TV _glitched_ , and the image shifted, and then: himself, suddenly on the screen, lit up with pink and bellowing at Dr. A.

“ _Does_ that _count as self harm?!”_

He heard Connie gasp. 

“‘.. _.yes, Steven. That would count- ’ ‘SHUT UP - ”_

_Blip._

And he was standing next to TV, had unconsciously ran past Connie in a panic and had - had unplugged it from the wall; the screen went dark. The TV itself wobbled a bit from the force of his movement, he was surprised it didn’t crack. The box for the tape of _City Lions_ clattered to the floor. 

And Steven - he just -

Just stared at the wall. Pretended that he didn’t feel Connie’s gaze on his back, and didn’t turn around, because he - if he had to turn around, and face her, he - he wasn’t sure what he would do, at this moment. 

“Steven,” he heard her quietly say behind him. 

“You shouldn’t have heard that,” he said hollowly, because there was no playing that off - Connie would’ve known immediately what that had been, she had seen that sort of projection of his before. And it was like the air had been sucked out of the room, out of him, and he felt empty now. Empty, and hollow, and _broken_ , more than he had in weeks. “You - you shouldn’t have. Heard that.”

There was a moment of silence between them, that seemed to stretch out forever.

“....you’re right,” he heard Connie say behind him, at long last. “I… I shouldn’t have. That was private, between you and your doctor. But Steven -” and he heard her footsteps, and spun around to see her take a step towards him, arms wrapped around her front tightly, as if she were struggling to hold herself together. “Steven, please - I _did_ hear it, and I -”

He watched in horror as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, as she gave him a weak smile. “Please - we don’t _need_ to talk about it. But if you need to, if you want to?”

“I’m here for you.”

\---

He went over and sat back on the corner of the bed, then. Looked up at her, and considered patting the spot next to him, but he didn’t need to - she went over and sat down next to him wordlessly, looking at him carefully.

“I - “

And the words were difficult to find, again, were stuck in his throat. 

“I just.”

He took a deep breath. Held it for a few seconds, hissed it out between his teeth like he had been taught. 

Connie smiled at him, then, and it was fragile and her eyes still had unshed tears, but she smiled. “Take your time,” she murmured softly.

“It’s been - therapy has been great, don’t get me wrong. I’m… I’m learning so much about myself, and about how to handle things - my doctor has tons of tricks, and tips, and advice and it’s. I _know_ it’s helping, really.” He flexed his hands into fists on his knees, stared down at them with all the focus in the world. “It’s definitely helping, but…”

“But?” Connie guided, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“But it’s so - so _much_ ,” he whimpered, then, turned and - and wrapped his arms back around her; unfazed, Connie guided his face to her shoulder, patting him softly on the back as he rambled. “It’s _so_ much work, and it’s really - really _hard_ ! It’s hard work and, and half the time - well, most of the time, really, I end up feeling just completely _awful!_ ” Choking on a sob, he noted with horror that her shirt was growing wet where his eyes were pressed. “A-and, and yeah, we’ve been - been talking about some heavy stuff, like - like -”

“I know,” she murmured.

He sobbed once again, shaking his head. “And it’s just, it’s just so _much_ and I really, argh! I really didn’t want you to know because I know you’re going through so much too, that it’s not easy on you that I’m so - so _busted_ right now, but here I am just - just making it all about _me_ again -”

“Steven, hey.” She pushed him away for a moment to look at his face, gave him a small smile even as he continued to blubber. “Hey - listen to me, Steven. You’re right, that _would_ be unfair, if you were doing that. But you’re _not_ , okay? I asked you what was up, I _wanted_ to know - I _want_ to know if you’re feeling okay, or if you’re not. And I mean, sure, I’ve got school and all,” and she shrugged at that, rolled her eyes a little, “and that matters to me too, but so do _you_ , Steven. You’re important to me, you know? So, so when you’re hurtling like this, _especially_ when you’re hurting like this, be fair to _yourself_ and let me know, ok?” 

He sniffed, loud and long; she chuckled a little, holding him back in for a tight hug. “Oh, Steven. I’m sorry you’re feeling so rough, but - but I know how it is. When I was in therapy -”

“ _You_ were in therapy?” he choked into her shoulder, startled.

“Uh, yeah - when I was younger, when we first moved to Ocean City. I was so anxious and nervous, my parents signed me up for it - it’s totally normal. I’ve been thinking of asking Mom if I could go back, actually, since college prep is stressing me out a lot, but - “ she sighed, shaking her head against his and laughing a little. “Oh, that’s not the point - the point is, I get it, Steven! It can be a lot of work, but when you find the right therapist, it’s really, really great. How are you liking Doctor Aki?”

“She’s - she’s great. She seems to know - know a lot about brains,” he said, hugging her back tightly in a squeeze before finally letting go; he wiped his remaining tears with the back of his thumb, giving Connie a smile. “Dad said that he got the recommendation from your mom, actually?”

“Oh, yeah!” Connie nodded excitedly. “She had just set up her practice here I think around that time, but she came highly recommended - I remember hearing that the hospital really wanted her on their staff. I’m really glad to hear you’re liking her.” She fell backwards against the bed once again, looking up at Steven and pulling on his sleeve; he laid down next to her. “But yeah - if you ever need to, to decompress, or to vent, or whatever - just give me a call, okay? Your appointments are usually, what, Mondays?”

He nodded. “Yeah, usually in the mornings tho….”

“Oh, hmm - you could always text me if you needed, I usually have my phone on me.”

Steven _gasped,_ and tried to ignore how damp it sounded . “ _Connie_ \- aren’t phones _illegal_ at school?”

She laughed, then, a warm laugh. “Yup, you know me - local criminal Connie Maheswaran, the _cellphone sneaker_. Gosh, if they had to arrest everyone who used a phone in school, there’d be no students!” 

He really, really loved her.

\---

They ended up plugging the TV back in after a bit, and switched over to _Dogcopter 6_ after all.

It was much better, watching it with someone else. 

\---


	8. day 113

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven laughs a bit.

At first, it was like Steven was consistently running out of time in his sessions.

Well, no, it wasn’t _like_ anything - he _was_. He really was, blabbering on until the buzzer rang every session in those first few months, and sometimes he’d leave wishing they had another hour or two, or four, instead of him leaving half-empty but still half-full of all the garbage he had accumulated since the last meeting. And by the next week he’d be top up again, overflowing with problems and issues and hang-ups, and they’d start the process once again, draining his wound slowly but surely - but slowly, and oh so painfully. 

\---

And then - as time went by, as the spring gave way to a full-fledged Delmarva summer - it became easier, almost.

He went in prepared more often than not, sometimes with notes and hints and whatnot jotted down, all to remind him of what he wanted to talk about. And sometimes those notes were upsetting, he would come in _upset_ just by thinking of what was throwing him off - but with Dr. A’s guidance, they were focused, even just a little bit. Instead of just wandering in the desert of his mind and stumbling into problems, big and small and everywhere, they could generally pick a theme to work on. 

One week, he came in with tears already in the corner of his eyes, and they had spent the session discussing his earlier experiences with the people around him dying - and he had to explain the concept of ‘poofing’ to her, then, because the look on her face was almost comically horrified, when he listed off all his unfortunate experiences. It really wasn’t anything bad, it’s not like it was _permanent_ , he had insisted - and had quickly been shut down when his doctor had just - just stared. 

“If it wasn’t all that bad, Steven,” she had said after a moment of consideration, “then why are you bringing it up now, in this setting? Is there a chance that these experiences with your loved ones getting hurt, disappearing, potentially _dying_ in front of you at such a young age - is there a possibility that these experiences have been lingering with you still?”

(And then he cried a lot, and it turned out the answer was - was _yes_ , after all, big surprise there. And he had known that, in a way, was why he wanted to bring it up but _gosh_ he was not fully aware of just how much of a yes it really was.

“That’s what this is all for,” she had mentioned with a smile as he headed out, after thanking her profusely for helping him sort through such an issue. “See you next week.”)

\---

And then - gradually, over time, and he didn’t even notice the pattern until he stopped one day to look back on it all and marvel - gradually, things became - even easier? If that was possible.

Because some weeks, they would look at his notes, and conversation was - was lighter. His issues were a spat with the Gems over what constitutes a vegetable (Amethyst insisted it was ‘anything in the ground’ and gosh, those worms _didn’t_ deserve that), or something his dad has said that just rubbed him the wrong way (but it was ok, because they had talked about being more understanding of their differing perspectives on the DeMayos, and so it didn’t tailspin him like it had before), or a nightmare he had had that had thrown him off for a few days (but not a whole week, no, he had mostly recovered from it by the time his session rolled around, and it was still difficult to talk about but it wasn’t impossible anymore). 

The road was still bumpy, sure, and they were driving precariously entirely in some of these sessions (and there was a spot in there where he metaphorically drove completely off the road for a few weeks, but he didn’t like to think back of that too much, and eventually it had been resolved and he was better for it - but it had been a scary moment, for sure). But things were slowly smoothing out - he hadn’t gone pink in a session for quite some time, his doctor had noted to him one week, and he felt a weirdly large sense of accomplishment at _that._

(He had, of course, gone pink outside of sessions - but he wasn’t so devastated by it as he had been before. He was gaining a small bit of control over his powers, and oh - that definitely hadn’t been the whole point of therapy, had been not even a consideration at the point he had been at, but it was a huge bonus to him, a huge value he was getting out of all their hard work.) 

\---

And then - one day, they wrapped up a topic, and there was a bit of a pause, where Steven just. Sat there, and felt kind of - good?

He mentioned that out loud, his voice somewhat incredulous: “I think I’m getting better at this?” And his doctor, the look on her face had been one of sheer delight, as she gave him an encouraging nod. “And, don’t get me wrong, this is all still really hard, but - I think I’m getting better at therapy. At talking about my feelings, and, and sorting things out - it’s kind of easier, now. Especially compared to before.”

“That’s a natural progression, Steven,” she had said, “but it’s _definitely_ something you should feel good about. You’ve been putting in a ton of work since you started coming in, and oh - I’m really glad you feel it’s paying off. For what it’s worth, I can see it too.” She gave him a grin, then, and he found his face mirroring it easily. “What else do you want to talk about?”

He shrugged. His list had been short this week, and not as deep of an issue as it had seemed before, and now? He was surprised to find that he just. 

He was feeling _okay_. 

“Well, we do still have about -” and she glanced at the timer, “oh, fifteen minutes left. Do you want to keep delving into things, or would you prefer to just chat? This is your time, Steven, so if you’re in a good mood you don’t _have_ to tear it all down just because you feel you should.” 

Steven rolled his eyes at that - “oh, _now_ you tell me!” 

And they laughed, and it had felt light.

\---

That wasn’t every week, of course. He still had weeks when he’d come in and leave an hour later felt like he’d been put through an emotional grinder, and he still found himself upset - though not turning-pink-upset, thankfully. But they were more infrequent now, easier to manage and sort through. 

He didn’t really notice the full scope of it, however, until it was pointed out to him.

“Hey, Steven,” Amethyst said to him one morning, an oddly strained look on her face - like she was trying to play it cool, as per the norm, but wasn’t fooling anyone, especially him. “Can I say something?”

He had nodded, looking up as he poured in his cereal. 

“I - well, really, all of us, it’s not just me - ugh! We’re really _proud_ of you, you know!” She slapped her hand down hard on the counter, looking at him fully then, with a wide smile blossoming over her face. “We’ve noticed that you’re doing a lot better, and like - don’t think it was ever an issue when you weren’t, cos we’re here for you and all, but you’ve really been better, and just - we caught you _singing_ the other day, you know?” 

She covered her face, then, with her hands; setting down the box of wheat-Os, Steven walked over and wrapped his arms around her. 

“You - you hadn’t done that in _months_ ,” she said, and her voice was thick now. “Even before everything went down - we were so used to it, and then it was just - just gone, you know? And then I heard you on the beach yesterday, and it’s just - just -” 

“Amethyst…” he said softly, as she sniffed loudly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. 

“Ugh, I didn’t mean to get all _sobby_ on you - we’re just so, so proud of you, and so happy for you!” And he hugged her again, couldn’t help but laugh quietly against her shoulder - 

\- because he was, too. 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, a big thank you to everyone who's been following along on this journey of steven's recovery. a bit of a lighter chapter today - i promise we're no where near done, though, no worries. :)


	9. day 81

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven goes for a walk, and laughs a bit more. 
> 
> (cw: anxiety, something of a manic episode)

He didn’t think about his official diagnosis often. 

(Or, at least - he tried not to; one didn’t have to do rocket science to figure out how well _that_ usually went! Ha, ha. )

Regardless - it was mostly jargon, anyways? Dr. A had quietly explained what the large words meant, had explained the difference between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and _C-_ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (and he wasn’t sure entirely what the C stood for - childhood? Crazy? Confusing? Too many options for that one), and he had mostly tuned it all out once he realized the words for what he felt - didn’t actually _change_ how he felt, wasn’t inherently the cure itself. 

If he was diagnosed with, had ‘Major Depressive Disorder’, so what? It didn’t make him feel any better to know that, almost ended up making him feel worse about it even! If he was not just ‘anxious’ but had ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder’, what good did that do him? 

And - it wasn’t like it was an excuse, or anything like that. Not a useful one anyways, he was pretty sure the Gems didn’t even know what those were, had probably not really concerned themselves, in their long existences, with the developments in the field of human mental health disorders. And his dad was already a wreck over his son’s state, he didn’t need to be any worse off. And he knew now that Connie had her own share of issues, had had her own struggles with anxiety in the past, so where was he coming in out of left field with it too? 

(Not to sell Connie short or anything - actually, ever since he had found out that she had gone through therapy too, had started seeing her own doctor once again, they had grown even closer - if that was possible! He didn’t ask her too much about what she went through, because that was private, between her and her doctor - but it was exciting, knowing that she knew what to do with thought records and the like. Gave it a new layer of comfort.) 

No, that wouldn’t be fair of him, to bring that up to them. To let them know that it was apparently _serious_ , the cracks in his brain (his skull) - 

So he just tried to not think about it that much. It seemed easier to just do that.

—-

And as time went by, and things started getting easier in general - he found his energy returning to him.

Not his gem powers per se (though those were slowly but surely coming along as well and was that a relief and a half and _oh_ was it nice to have things finally going back to normal - ), but more so it was that he was able to get up early once again, that he didn’t feel the need to sleep in so much? He stopped setting his morning alarm (which he honestly should’ve done a while ago, months ago - he had gotten into the habit prior to turning it off and going back to sleep immediately) and found himself rising with the sounds of the seabirds once again.

There was an abundance of sunlight now too, in the midst of summer as they were, and it was - was good, was great even! Steven felt like a plant, practically, absorbing in the rays. He found that he was going on his morning walks pretty frequently now, almost every day weather permitting, and - he felt excitement thrumming through him when he realized it, because this was a good habit, just like Dr. A had suggested to him, and this was a small victory on his continued path to recovery! 

He was really doing it! 

So, he decided, he was going to make it an _official_ habit, a solid routine to guide himself.

And so Steven would check his phone at night, would see when sunrise was in the morning, what the weather would be - and he would go to sleep knowing he had _plans_ for the next day, something to motivate him, to _do._ So what if it was difficult to fall asleep then, he was just - so excited, to be in control of himself once again, to be in control when for _so_ long now he had been caught in a seemingly endless tailspin, had been crashing, prone to breaking apart - he was coming back. He could get _control_ back this way, and it was great, and so what if he woke up a bit tired the next morning, if his feet dragged a bit through the sand? He was doing it, and he was going to do it, and the sense of satisfaction he got in the end was just -

(Well, sometimes it wasn’t really satisfaction, and sometimes he’d make it back with his mind racing faster and faster, and his heart pounding perhaps a hair too fast- ) 

It was worth it, just for that. 

\---

But then - 

One morning, he woke up early, before the sun had even risen, before his alarm had gone off. He glanced over at his clock - not even five o’clock in the morning. _Great_. 

And yet, he found himself getting up - getting out of bed, practically jumping into his morning walking clothes. He was surprised to find himself not tired, especially because sleep itself had been particularly hard to come by the night before, and he had just had - so many ideas, so many things he wanted to work on for Little Homeschool when he got the chance to go back, and - and he had been texting Connie, but then she had to go to sleep and he was still up, still had things to tell her, so he had written a journal entry for his therapist to look at the next time he saw her (she would be so pleased, even tho it was almost five pages long - he could write a summary of it later, paraphrase it down). And so he had laid there for an hour before he had gone up to the garden to look over his plants, had trimmed a few of them back, and - 

And Steven wasn’t the best at math, no, he could admit that - but he was pretty sure he had about three hours or so in there? 

“Must not need it,” he whispered to himself, as he practically skipped down the stairs- it made sense, he was half-Gem and the Gems he knew had sleep as a totally optional condition, so maybe it was just that as he was getting older, he didn’t _need_ the standard amount of human hours? Or, or maybe he had just been sleeping _so_ much the past few months, his body had decided he was good for now? Whatever it was - he felt his blood thrumming, his heart was pumping- he was _ready to go!_

Downstairs, the house was still dark, like the sky outside, and he felt a rush of even more excitement, as he quickly (but quietly) opened up the front door and stepped outside - 

\- to feel the rain slap against his face.

“Oh, _no_ ,” he murmured to himself, looking up at the dark (practically invisible) clouds in the sky, before stepping back into the doorway. “No, no, no…” He had forgotten to check his weather app! He pulled out his phone from his pocket, flipped over to it - maybe this was just a small shower passing through? But no, it looked like it was supposed to rain all day, was predicted for the next few days.

And that was just - was just not going to work for him. How was he supposed to get his exercise, get his energy flowing properly if he wasn’t able to go on his morning walk? It was a _routine_ of his, one of his best healthy habits, and - and - and if he didn’t go, he was going to slip back, he _knew it._ He’d miss this one walk, miss the next, go back to bed and just curl up there under his comforter and would just, waste away and _die_ , and everyone was going to be so upset in him, because - because he had been doing _so_ good lately, had been in _recovery_ , and -

The door screeched loudly as he swung it open, as he rushed outside. It was probably just a small shower, he thought to himself as the rain misted his hair, and it honestly felt kind of good, and besides - it would probably pass soon enough! Right?

\---

Uh, nope. 

Turns out he was caught in the beginning of a _thunderstorm._

And yet - he had been through worse weather than this! Sure, it was really hard to walk in the wet sand, and the wind did whip against his body, stinging his skin (why hadn’t he put on his jacket, he didn’t know - he had just, needed to go outside _right then_ \- ), and sure he got completely drenched from head to toe, soaked through, it might’ve been easier for him to just - just go _wade_ into the ocean itself, and it was loud, too, the crashing of the waves against the rocks and shore next to him - 

He looked up, and realized - oh, he had gone - far.

Further than he usually went. Huh. 

Must’ve been preoccupied.

With a loud groan, he turned around and began his treck back, then, running now - 

-and the rain stung against his cheeks, as he ran further, and faster, and - the rain began to disappear in his sight, because it was practically frozen - but it _hurt_ , as he crashed through the droplets in double-time, triple-time, and _god_ was he stupid, always was doing stupid stuff like this, but it was also okay, because he was _better_ now, was in recovery! He had come so far from when he had been swelling, from when he had been a ~~shatterer~~ monster, he was doing so much better! And he laughed, laughed in the rain, and he was going so fast and it felt - felt overwhelming, felt like too much, like he was going to burst - he felt _great_.

\--- 

“What on Earth were you thinking?!” 

Pearl had been waiting for him when he got back, an aghast look on her face - that quickly turned into her normal sort of _presumptive_ anger, once she saw that he was physically okay enough. Her hands were firmly on her hips, standing in the stairway, and she was mad at him, oh, she was mad.

Granted, he did look a hot mess, he knew; was dripping rainwater all over the wooden floors. But he shrugged at her, gave her a little bark of a laugh - she must just be misunderstanding him, because he was fine, this had been - been a good decision. 

“What? No, listen Pearl - I’m fine,” he explained, giving her a good-natured grin, “it’s, going on morning walks like this is a good habit of mine! And I just, even though it was sprinkling just a _lil’_ bit outside, you know I didn’t want to break my streak or anything like that -”

“You could have used an umbrella, though!” she interrupted, waving at the one they had hanging up, literally right there by the door. “Or, or walked around in the house, or - we have literally a series of interconnected galactic warp pads, right _there_!” She gestured behind herself. 

“I wanted to go outside here, though” he insisted, his grin growing even wider, his cheeks straining at - at just how _good-natured_ he was being, because this was ridiculous. “I knew what I was doing, don’t worry about me! I’ll, I’ll go change, and get a towel for the floor -”

“Oh, it’s not about the _floor_ , Steven!” Pearl crossed her arms across her chest. “You have to take _care_ of yourself, you could get sick!”

And it was - _ha!_

\- it was like his blood was boiling, suddenly, a flash in the pan and he was _steaming_ angry out of nowhere - and he could practically _taste_ the vitriol on his tongue as he spat it out, like venom - and he _glowed_ , then, lit up like a cracked glowstick that had been shook (and maybe he was shaking, too, he wasn’t sure, but he was just - so _sick_ of this - )

“Oh, don’t act like you care _now_ , that I might get _sick - uh,_ news flash, Pearl, I already _am_ sick!” He stomped the ground ( and the floorboard underfoot giving a dangerous creak), and let out a bitter laugh. “The doctors have given me fancy names for it now, did you know, like - like _Post Traumatic Stress_ , and _depression_ , and it turns out that, surprise! My brain is completely and totally _broken_ already!!”

“Steven- “ and it hurt, how her anger had shifted into - _fear?_ \- 

“ -and I don’t need to hear this, because it’s _fine,_ I'm _fine,_ because _I’m_ \- _move_ , Pearl!” 

And surprisingly enough, she did. Just stared at him for a second and then stepped off to the side, eyes cast downward as he stomped his way up the stairs, words failing her. 

\---

_(He - he wasn’t sure what he did next, then._

_Stomped around in anger for certain, anger and panic and rage, but also - his chest was thumping loud now, his heart was pounding louder and faster than the storm outside, and he just - so mad, but that was quickly fading away into fear, and just - panic, and -_

_And he found himself on his balcony, in the storm -_

_\- and then he was climbing down off his balcony, jumping down onto the ground below, and running out now, because -_

_\- he knew what he had to do, had to do it, and he couldn’t wreck the house again but he - he had to -_

_\- and he fell to his knees, fisted his hands in his hair, and - he_ screamed _.)_

_\---_

Pearl was waiting for him once again, when he came in the second time; he numbly accepted her offered towel, though, eyes downcast as he watched the rain fall to the floor with each of his shivers. 

“There’s a change of clothes for you on your bed,” she said softly, quietly.

He nodded at her, and went upstairs.

Changed into dryer clothes.

Cried a bit.

Went back downstairs, where she was waiting with a cup of warm tea, and cried a bit more.

“I’m sorry, Pearl,” he said morosely, staring down at the mug. “I… it felt like I. I just _had_ to go, I know it wasn’t a good idea.” He took a quiet sip, let out a sigh. “I think I’m cracked.”

“You’re not cracked,” she tutted softly, her hands folded in her lap, and he scooted closer to her on the couch, leaned his wet curls against her shoulder. “I know what you’re feeling, believe it or not - the feeling that something terrible will happen if you don’t do something immediately. I’ve gotten better at it, over time, but…” 

“But it still happens?” he murmured. She nodded, paused.

“And because I know, or at least have a pretty good guess as to what you might be feeling - Steven, recovery... it’s like sword fighting, you know.” And Pearl smiled, he could tell by the one of her voice - “Depending on the situation, how you react to things - you’re constantly moving your feet. Just because you’re backing up doesn’t mean you’ve lost the fight, you know."

"You just need to know when to step forward, too.”

He chuckled, before sighing, morose. “It just feels like I’m taking an awful lot of steps back, you know. Isn’t there like - an edge to this arena?” 

She wrapped an arm around him then, gave him a squeeze. “We’ll be there to stop you from falling off, don't worry. And, well - luckily, you also know how to fly.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter really fought with me, but - got it did! yee haw.


	10. day 137

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven visits another doctor, and messes up. 
> 
> (cw: medication and side-effects, messing with dosages, suicidal thoughts briefly)

At first glance, Doctor Smoke’s office was - similar, to the office of his psychologist’s. They both had their certificates and awards very prominently displayed (and while Steven hadn’t given college a thought beyond that he wanted to follow Connie there, he still knew enough to know that to be a doctor you had to go for like, a _billion_ years - so it made sense that they all showed them off). They both had desks, and a ton of really complicated-looking, thick books about the human psyche, and brains, and - other doctor stuff, he figured. 

But there were also tiny little differences, too. While Dr. A’s office had a decent amount of greenery in it - real _and_ fake, she had told him- a quick cursory glance revealed no plants in the office of the older, white-haired man. He sat across the room from Steven, with a thick, oaken desk between them, dividing the room neatly in half; Steven found himself sitting in his own decently fancy chair on the opposite side, swinging his legs idly as the psychiatrist looked over his medical intake forms.

And as he watched the expressions flitting across his face - he braced himself a little. If this was anything like when he went to the hospital, apparently Steven was missing some key information that doctors _really_ thought he should have by now; things like a ‘social security number’ (which he had no idea what that was even for, but he apparently was missing one because he was half-alien, cool) or the dreaded ‘general practitioner’ (because what if they wanted to know his medical history? He had only seen Connie’s mom once and had spent half the time glowing and freaking out - no thanks). He had filled out the forms to the best of his ability before he even got to the medical center, located about twenty minutes outside of Beach City, had pondered over the questions and had consulted the Gems about it, then his dad when it turned out they had no _idea_ what to put down for a medical history for his mother’s side. 

(He had ended up writing ‘high blood pressure’ down, along with ‘magical spit’ and ‘physical form was projection of light’.)

Eventually, the older gentleman set his paperwork down, gave him a thorough, strong look-over. “Normally, I only see patients on the recommendation of their regular doctors - most people start their journey with medication there, typically. But it says here you don’t have one at the moment?”

“Er, yeah,” Steven mumbled, looking down at his sandaled feet. It was a little on the colder side in the office. “I mean, I’ve seen Co- er, Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran, at the hospital, but uh - only once, really. I’ve never been to the doctors before that.”

Dr. Smoke gave him another look - seemed to be searching him for something, before he nodded, looking down at the forms and writing something down. “Curious,” he remarked. “Well, it sounds like Doctor Akiyama has recommended you here anyways, thinks that I will be able to help. What do you think, Steven?”

He blinked, had not been expecting that question; after a second, he shrugged, looking out the window to the side. “I… I don’t know, to be honest,” he responded, and his hands clenched on his thighs. “I mean, therapy - talk therapy has been going really well so far, and I’ve learned a lot, but - but Dr. A thinks it might be worth looking into, uhm.” He swallowed over the lump in his throat. 

“Into medication?” the doctor supplied. 

Steven nodded, and opened his mouth - and to his horror, began to ramble. “And - it’s just, I’ve never been on - on really _any_ sort of medication? Like, I don’t know if Dr. A told you, but I’m, uh, part Gem - that’s on my mother’s side, with all the alien stuff - and part of that is healing abilities, so, apparently I’ve made a few miraculous recoveries in my lifetime and all, but, ha, it’s like my brain is broken now, and I - my Gem powers don’t seem to be healing that, for some reason? So Dr. A thinks I should be giving meds a try, but I’m really not sure how they’re going to work, if they’re gonna work at all, and - ” 

“Steven,” Dr. Smoke said firmly, causing him to clamp his mouth shut suddenly. “I understand that you have, ah, a bit of a different build than my normal clientele. But your fears aren’t too far removed from what I normally hear, with new patients.” He pulled down a - a tome of sorts from one of the bookshelves, flipping through it idly as he spoke. “Will this work or not, is this a good idea, I’ve been fine without it - ah, but there’s still something that brought you here today, is there not? Some places where ‘fine’ doesn’t quite cut it?”

“M-my anger,” Steven murmured, trying to sound cool (even though he wasn’t - he could hear the faint buzzing of dissociation between his ears). “And, uh. I get really keyed up a lot, I guess. Dr. A says, uh, that I’m having difficulty due to my past trauma?”

The doctor paused, looking down at his book - before nodding and shutting it, heading back to his desk. He pulled out a pad of what looked to be blue paper, and started writing something down on it. “And how does that affect your life, do you think? How does that impact your time with family and friends?”

“They’re, uh, supportive, I guess? But I’ve kind of - quit a lot of things, because of it, because of how I’ve been feeling. I just - I just want to go back to normal.”

Dr. Smoke hummed. “Well, we can certainly try - we’re going to start you off easy, though. I’ve got a script here for a very mild antidepressant, one I usually start patients out on when they come in with symptoms such as yours - we’ll give this one a try, and I’ll see you in a month, see how you’re dealing with it, if it’s working at all. And we can go from there.” He held out the paper to Steven, who took it, looked down at the scribbled-on piece of paper.

“Wait, that’s it?”

The older man nodded, giving him a quirk of his mouth that might’ve passed as a smile. “For now, yes. We’ll see how things go.”

\---

So that was that, then. 

Steven dropped off the prescription at the pharmacy - told the pharmacist he didn’t have insurance, he was going to pay out of pocket for it. They had seemed a bit surprised at that, and had taken the liberty to help him look up a coupon on his phone - apparently it would save him a ton of money? Which was nice, but - it was fine his dad had told him, had insisted that he use their shared card for all doctor stuff, but it was still nice that someone was looking out for him.

And besides, when he saw the bill stapled to the bag of medicine a half hour later, saw the original amount it would’ve cost before the coupon had been applied, he understood why. _That was no small amount of money_ _they were asking him to pay_. Geez louise. 

And so, he drove home, and took the meds inside - hidden inside his bag, though, feeling like he was smuggling some sort of contraband into the house. The Gems of course knew that he was going to a - a _psychiatrist_ now as well, but it still felt - _weird_ . He doubted they really got what it was that he was doing, that he was going to try to - to change his brain’s _chemicals_ , so he didn’t feel so sad, and it felt - weirdly criminal. 

\---

His prescription sat untouched in his bag for two more nights.

\---

And then, on the third night - 

(And this was only after he had told Connie - because he had of course texted her about Dr. Smoke and his weirdly large desk, had mentioned that his medication was priced to what he was pretty sure was an absurdly high degree, and then he had asked her, had worked up the nerve to say: had she ever heard of the medicine he had been prescribed? And she had, because Connie was smart and knew things like that, and said that there were commercials everywhere for it, that it was common and - how was he liking it so far?

And he had to tell her that well, it was going great so far sitting in its bag untouched, and she had given him a mild scolding, but had been understanding of his - his fear, he supposed it was, his hesitation. 

And she had sent him a website with some tips for starting new medication, cautioned him to make sure he was setting an alarm to make sure he was taking it each day at the same time, suggested that he might want to get something called a pill box - )

\- he worked up the nerve to pull it back out. To take a good look at - at his medication

It was in a somewhat clear orange bottle, with UNIVERSE, S. printed on it. The label below it read out the script (ESCITALOPRAM, 10 MG) along some guides on when to take it, who to call if he was having issues, et cetera. As he turned the bottle over in his hands, he saw the contents - a bunch of what looked to be little white pills, sliding around. 

Had he even taken a pill before? He honestly didn’t remember, but it didn’t look - _difficult._ And Steven put his hand on the top of the bottle, and gave it a turn to unscrew it - the lid spun around, once, twice, three times, and refused to come off. 

Huh.

Five minutes and one bout of strength later, he had the top off, but it didn’t look like it was going to go back on, crumped in his hand as it was. He shrugged, tossing it into the trash - he didn’t really need a lid, anyways!

And he poured out a pill, gave it a thorough once-over, before shrugging, tossing it into his mouth and crunching down on it -

It tasted _awful._ He gagged, sticking out his tongue before grabbing a glass of water and trying to rinse down the taste of the medicine as fast as possible - “why would they make it taste like _that_?” he whined to himself.

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to just swallow them, in fact,” Garnet replied from his right.

He jumped a bit, of course, moved his hands quickly to try to hide the container of meds - knocking it over, and the collection of little white pills he had been given spilled over the kitchen counter, one or two dropping onto the ground. “Ugh, _shoot_ \- Garnet, you scared me there!” he hissed, running around the peninsula to try to find the missing pill; he very pointedly tried to ignore the flush to his cheeks that were surely hot with embarrassment. 

“Hmm. Sorry,” she shrugged at him cooly, crossing her arms over her chest. Her visor glinted in the kitchen light. “You don’t need to hide those from us though, Steven.” 

“I wasn’t -” He spotted one, picking it up near the corner, before sweeping all the spilled pieces on the counter with his hands. “I wasn’t _hiding_ them, I just - ugh.” One, two, three - 

“You’ve got them all.”

He sighed harshly. “ _Thanks_ , Garnet,” he droned, placing them into the pill bottle; he really hoped he wasn’t turning pink or anything. She nodded, opening her mouth - and paused for a moment, a rare sight from her.

“Steven, I -”

“I said, _thanks_ ,” he repeated harshly, and, finished with his task - grabbed his bag from the back of the chair he had hung it on, and stomped upstairs. 

First dose, down.

\---

He double-checked, and found that Garnet was correct with her suggestion, as ill-timed as it might have been - so he gave it a try with the second. And he felt - 

\- kind of the same? 

Steven felt very much the same, in fact, even on day three. And day four. And day five.

If anything, he felt slightly _worse_ \- kind of jittery, really, his hands couldn’t seem to stop shaking? And like he had a _ton_ more energy, but only when it was time for him to go to bed; he found himself rolling back and forth, sweating under his ceiling fan on high blast, and ended up spending a few nights partially on his balcony, staring up at the stars. But his mood seemed to be pretty consistent, or even worse now that he was finding it so hard to sleep, and he was kind of cranky, and he had snapped at the Gems one morning for being too loud, and he felt just so _drained_ \- 

(“Those are pretty common side-effects, unfortunately,” Dr. A had told him at their next session, giving him an apologetic smile. “You’re asking your brain to change a lot suddenly, so there’s bound to be a few mixed signals, a few crossed wires. Just stick with it, take it easy if you can - and make sure to stick with your other forms of coping, too. Make sure you’re taking the chance to talk through your feelings with the Gems and your dad, okay?”)

And it was just - it wasn’t fast enough! 

By day eight, after being on the meds for a solid week - he felt weary, and drained, and honestly kind of pissed off. What were they thinking, prescribing him something like this? It wasn’t working, clearly - most likely, his Gem powers were messing things up for him once again, probably were blocking it from working. 

Or maybe it was just that his brain was _super_ broken, that he wasn’t as easy of a case as the doctor had thought - the doctor, who had barely talked to him at all, had just written him a script and sent him on his way. 

And, well, Steven wasn’t a doctor, no, but he had only been prescribed 10 ‘mg’, whatever that stood for - maybe that just, wasn’t enough? He had been on it for a _week_ already, and that was an awfully long time for medication, he was pretty sure - and all it had done was give him jumpy hands and had wrecked his sleep, which he had had already, and just - 

He needed to get better _now_!

So that night, when his alarm went off - he went downstairs, got himself a glass of water, and took two instead of just one. And then went to bed.

\---

And Steven woke up that night, sat up and immediately knew - he had made a huge mistake. It was like his world had been turned upside down - he felt absolutely _awful._

“I’m going to die,” he whispered to himself, his hand clutched over his heart - which seemed to be absolutely _racing_ out of his chest, beating faster than it must’ve ever had beaten in his whole entire life - and he felt his eyes prickle with tears. His mind felt like it was _swimming_ with thoughts, _drowning_ \- “I’m going to _die_ , Dr. Smoke killed me. I’m…”

“The doctor also told you to only take one at a time, I’m pretty sure.” 

He looked up. 

Garnet was standing at the top of his stairs again, an understanding frown on her face. She stood there with a mug, and a plate with - with toast on it, it appeared. And he nodded silently, hiding his face as she walked over, sat down on the side of his bed.

And the taller Gem, she rubbed his back gently as he began to cry, as he - rambled a bit, embarrassedly, because it wasn’t _fair_ , he just wanted to feel _better_ already - he had been working _so_ hard now, for months and months and - it just wasn’t _fair_ . And was he _ever_ going to feel better? He had been working so _hard_! 

“You will,” she murmured quietly in response, gaze hidden beneath her visor. 

“Do you see that?” Steven whispered back, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to dry them, “or are you just telling me that so I’ll, so I’ll feel better?”

“Maybe both,” she replied, giving him a soft grin. 

\---

It took him the rest of the day to come down from that - that weirdly elevated state. And he definitely didn’t do _that_ ever again. One a day, once a day, thank you very much.

And so he didn’t notice any sort of big change at all, as the days went by, except that after a few more days of hell - he began to start being able to get to sleep a bit easier? Not as easily as it had come to him before, and he definitely seemed to not have the option to sleep in anymore, but he was fine for the most part. A wave of exhaustion seemed to usually grip him around 4 in the afternoon, most days, and he found himself taking a quick power nap more days than not, but - but he went back to normal on that, then.

And the shaking seemed to go away too, thankfully - he was worried that Connie’s mom was going to force him to wear another sweater in the middle of the summer once _again_ , like the last time he had gone over to their house, because he had certainly had the chills -

(He had quietly told her that he was pretty sure it was a side effect of his new medication; Priyanka had looked taken back for just a moment, before nodding, and - surprisingly, giving him a hug?

“Feel free to call me if you have any concerns,” she had whispered to him before releasing him and disappearing into the house. And it - it had been nice, had gifted him a smile that stuck with him the entire ride back home.)

\- yeah, that had thankfully gone away. 

\---

But then - 

“How have you been this week, Steven? Let’s get your symptom ratings.” Dr. A grabbed her clipboard, smiling back at him from across the room. “How would you put your depression since I last saw you?”

And Steven, who had prepared for this week the hour before he had left, had cobbled together the various topics he wanted to discuss and had pre-thought these questions - he grinned. “Honestly? Pretty minimal,” he answered honestly, rolling his neck a little. “Maybe a 2?”

She blinked at him before nodding, writing that down. “That’s fairly low for you, Steven,” she commented, scribbling a note. “You were rating things much higher - 4, 6, a solid 10 a few weeks ago. What do you think brought on this change?”

And he grinned. “Well, I see Dr. Smoke tomorrow for my one-month appointment - I think things are going pretty good, honestly."

\---

And it was great, and he was feeling great. And if the story had ended there, it would’ve been perfect - he had finally recovered, was feeling better and _was_ better! 

Except, then they had turned to discussing his mom, and then to how she had treated people near her, and how _unfair_ it was - and he left the session still with red eyes, sniffling, and purposefully took the long way home that night.

Except, then Amethyst had finished the last of his vegetarian lasagna he had made, and he had been looking forward to it, and she had _laughed_ at him when he had been upset, and just - no one ever took him seriously! And he had gotten mad, had snapped at her and had stomped off. 

Except, and this was a hard one for him to handle - he kept thinking about - about _things_ , things that made him call Connie and wake her up way, way late at night, and it was completely selfish of him but he just couldn’t stop it, it was like his mind was out of _control,_ and - wasn’t he supposed to be _better_ now?

“Oh, Steven,” Connie had said quietly over the phone, “you _are_ doing so much better, though - you haven’t called me like this in, in weeks? Not that there’s anything wrong with you calling, of course, but - it’s not all _big_ steps, you know.”

And that had stuck with him, even after he had calmed down, had bid her tonight; and he laid there, staring up at his ceiling, at the slowly spinning fan. He laid there for a moment before getting back up, tiptoeing over to his door.

He found himself back on the balcony, staring up at the stars in the sky. There were - not as many here as there were in the woods, no, but there were still a decent number of them. He looked up and imagined that he knew which ones were the ones he knew, which systems he had been to before, if he could see Homeworld from here. 

_Not all big steps, huh._

He stayed out for a few minutes longer, breathing in the night air, before going back to bed. 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a somewhat important chapter to me - ive been on medication for my depression/anxiety for over five years now, and i honestly credit it with how im able to function as well as i can, haha. at the same time - i know medication can be really tricky, and can be a difficult journey for a lot of people to go on. make sure you're on that journey with a doctor you trust, and that you take it easy and be patient with yourself. 
> 
> big hugs for u all. <3


	11. day 92

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven goes out on the town.

He was _not_ a wreck, he told himself.

“Not a wreck at all - no, Steven, you’re gonna be _fine_ ,” Steven said to himself again, firmly, as he climbed into the driver’s side of the Dondai, slapping his face lightly before starting up the old car. He checked his mirrors for alignment (and to make sure his face was just that - a normal, non-glowing face), and whispered to himself, “it’s just - just Connie and her cram school friends, you’ve met them before, they think Gem stuff is _cool_ and not weird - you’ve _got_ this.”

Yeah!

...oh, who was he kidding - he was _so_ nervous about this. It was like the roller rink all over again, except - _worse_ , because it was just him and Connie, no Bismuth or Pearl this time, and he remembered still very vividly how that had gone initially, how he had fallen on his face quite literally - and that had been before everything else in his life had fallen apart, in such a catastrophic way.

It was kind of funny in a way, how disrupting his routines caused him - such panic, nowadays, as a result. Heck, his life had been anything _but_ routine for most of his life! There had always been something different going on, a new monster to face, a new obstacle to overcome - and yet, he had turned into such a homebody over the past few months, ever since his meltdown... spending an egregious amount of time in bed, in the house lazing about, moping and feeling bad for himself.... 

Although, he _had_ left the house a few times, especially recently - but it had only been for short trips, to the grocers or to just walk about the boardwalk, and his interaction with other people and Gems had been minimal at best. Minimal, to the point where his therapist had gently encouraged him to consider getting out of the house more, to try to keep things a little more lively in his life.

(“It’ll definitely help you feel like you’re getting back to normal,” she had told him at their last session, which he had spent mostly red-eyed, after recounting his meeting with the Room’s projection of his mother. “Try to reward yourself a bit, Steven - you’re working _so_ hard, harder than many of my patients do if I’m being honest. Go out, and I mean - be careful, of course, but _live_. You can’t be afraid of it, can’t let your anxiety dictate your life.”)

So, when Connie had texted him last night, asking if he had wanted to go to karaoke with Daniel, Patricia and her - they had just finished their last exam, and she was sure she had aced it! And they wanted to celebrate, they were going to _Sing-Out_ in Ocean Town and come on, it would be fun - he had forced himself to answer back with a yes, of course, that sounded great! Let’s go! 

And really, it did - he wasn’t lying. 

But it also sounded like… like a _lot._ Especially for Steven Universe, recent monster and resident hermit. And really, with someone with a brain as _busted_ as his -

“No, no,” he murmured as he turned onto the road towards Connie’s house, “none of that, Steven. It’s singing, it’s _music -_ if there’s any way for you to connect with other normal people your age, it’s through that!” 

He cranked up his radio’s speaker a bit louder, to the point where he was sure other cars could hear the bass thumping outside, but - he didn’t care, he was determined to have a good night, it was going to be fine, he was on an up-swing lately - no, there was no need for him to be nervous at all. 

\---

Connie was waiting outside on her porch for him as he pulled up, the sun starting to cast the sky into warmer tones of pinks and gold. He turned down his radio a bit before honking the horn of his car - quietly as he could, since he knew her neighbors might not appreciate it - and she gave him a look before laughing a little. 

“Alright, I see you!” she yelled, picking up a bag of hers and swinging it over her shoulder. 

She was wearing a new top - it was sleeveless, small straps tied at her shoulders, with a soft, delicate scallop edge at the bottom. And it looked - good, _incredibly_ pretty on her, and he tried to act casual as she opened up the passenger’s side door of the Dondai and climbed in. “Hey, Connie,” he said in his slyest, most _coo_ l voice possible, “you look, uh. Nice!”

She gave him an easy grin, cheeks blushing pink a bit as she leaned over and pecked his cheek - “oh, why thank you, Sir Handsome,” she replied, “not too shabby yourself.” 

He blinked - he was just wearing his black star shirt, like he did most days, but he shrugged it off with a smile and returned the small kiss to her own cheek. “Ha, thanks. Uh, do you have the address to the place? I’ll type it into my GPS and we can get going - don’t wanna be late. Daniel and Patricia are meeting us there, right?”

She nodded, giving him the address, and after a moment of fiddling with his car’s vent mount- those things were always stupid tricky - he backed out onto the street, and before he knew it they were on their way to _Sing-Out._

“Oh man, I’m so excited! Have you ever been to this place before?” Connie asked after a moment, a pleasant smile on her face as she turned her gaze from the passing scenery to him. He shook his head. “I know you and the Gems sing all the time, but karaoke’s pretty cool - they’ve got, like, _junk food_ snacks, and bubble tea, and the rooms are soundproof so you can yell really loud!” 

He laughed, pausing for a moment as his phone directed him to turn left - “I don’t think I’ve had bubble tea in a long time, not since Dad and I’s trip to Korea with, uh - anyways. It’s the one with the chewy things in it, right?”

“Yeah! They’re tapioca, but you can get them with other things here - I like coconut jelly, but oh man, there’s options!” 

She laughed a bit, then, and she was just - so _pretty_ , and Steven almost missed his turn. 

\---

“Daniel, come on - you’ve already sang twice! Let someone else have a turn!”

Steven watched them argue briefly, ripping off a corner of his waffle. Karaoke was - it was really _fun_ , it turned out. They were in a small room, meant only for parties of around four people, which was perfect for them; there was a small stage in the corner of the room, where Daniel was currently strutting his _stuff_ and had been bellowing out a song from the 90s that Steven didn’t know. There was a table in the center, where they had all their snacks, and there was a tv on the far wall where the lyrics to the songs were posted - not that anyone needed them too much, as they were picking out songs that they mostly knew by heart anyways. 

“Listen, I’m a _professional_ -”

“You were in choir for freshman year _only_. Come on!” Patricia stood up, smiling even with her stern words, and grabbed the remote from her friend’s hands. “I know what I want to sing already!”

Steven sighed, looking down at the thick tome of songs laid out in front of them, where they had been flipping through just a moment prior. He took the moment to lean his shoulder against Connie’s a bit, drawing her attention.

“Man, thank you for inviting me, Connie,” Steven said softly, “this is - this is really fun.” She smiled back at him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“Hey, no _P-D-A_!” Patricia yelled, pointing at them from the stage, before giggling. “No, just kidding, you two are cute. Here we go!” She pressed a button on the remote, and a catchy, quick retro beat started up. 

\---

And then - 

“Wow, Steven. You’re _really_ good!!” Daniel said, clapping his hands. “I rescind my crown to you.”

He shrugged, grinning wide as he stepped off the miniature stage, giving an exaggerated bow. “Ah, thank you,” he said, shrugging a bit as he sat back down on the couch. “I, uh, my family’s pretty musical? Both sides, kinda - my, uh, the Diamonds once actually _serenaded_ me to not leave, and my dad plays guitar -

“Ha, _that’s_ an understatement - his dad is a _rock star_ !” Connie said, leaning forward with excitement. “Mr. _Universe_ \- I wonder if any of his songs are in here, even, ooo! That would be so fun!” 

“Oh man, he’d be so excited if any of them were in here - though I think I know all of them by heart by now, don’t really need the lyrics to them, haha...” Still, he flipped through the book, already thinking to himself that he would need to send a picture to his dad if they did find it. “Would they be under _U_ or _M_ , do you think?”

“Hmm, try _M._ But wow, Steven, your life sounds so exciting and _wild_ \- my dad’s just a dentist,” Patricia lamented. “All I ever heard was reminders on how often to floss.” 

“Well, flossing is important - oh, I don’t think they have it,” he said sadly, looking at the gap between _Misty Three Moons_ and -

“ _Oh,_ but they do have _Kerry Moonbeam_ ? That’s certainly a pick,” Daniel pointed out, rolling his eyes a bit. “I hear their stuff on _The Summit_ sometimes.”

And Steven blinked, looked down at the list - _Sing-Out_ had three songs by Kerry Moonbeam on there, it turns out. 

And there was a - a moment of hesitation as he scanned through them: _Under Stress, Starboy_ , and _Let’s Boogie_ \- no _Mister Universe._

He blinked again, twice; let out the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. 

“Ha, ha, yeah,” he mumbled.

And Connie gave him a look, then, but he did his best to ignore her suddenly concerned eyes - because it was, it was _okay_ . It was just a song, anyways, it wasn’t - it wasn’t anything important, even if - _no._ It wasn’t important. He wasn’t going to ruin things by being upset over a song, he was totally, completely fine.

\---

That lasted for about, say, a minute. 

“Ooo, Patricia, that one has _swears_ in it,” Connie teased, as the hijabi girl finally selected her pick - with a click of the remote, another upbeat song started, a guitar rift quickly playing through the room. 

“Shush, I’m not gonna _sing_ them,” she said with a roll of her eyes, holding the microphone up to her mouth. “ _I’m a Super Sensation, totally singing super-star kind of girl! Yeah!”_

Steven - he laughed, he thought, as she went about with her performance, looking down at his hands. And blinked. He was fine. He was fine. He was -

“ _And you’ll never know, because you’re just like -_ hey, wait a second. These aren’t the lyrics!”

And his head snapped up, and his horror was already clear on his face because oh, he _knew_ what was going to go wrong, had been subconsciously worried about it ever since he saw the tv, since the other night with Connie when he had _broadcasted_ \- and he wasn’t doing that completely, not entirely no, thank the stars, but he looked up and the lyrics on the screen _morphed_ , waved and spelled out, clear as day: _you’re just like her. You’re just like her. You’re just like her. You’re just -_

“Ugh, lame. Pick another song,” Daniel sighed, picking up the remote and pressing the back button. And the screen stayed the same. “Huh, what?”

“It must be a computer issue or something,” he heard Connie say quickly next to him, as she stood up, “why don’t you two go ask the front if they can reset the monitor from up there, and we’ll, uh, Steven and I can - can see if we can fix it on our end?” 

They looked at each other, probably looked at him (and oh, he _prayed_ he wasn’t pink, wasn’t going to turn pink, could feel their gaze on him and they probably thought he was weird, so weird, was he _sweating_ -) and then shrugged. “Yeah, sure,” one of them said, and they headed out.

\---

Connie watched them walk down the hallway for a moment, before closing the door softly, and turned and looked at him. “Steven,” she said. 

“Yeah?” he replied.

She jerked a thumb at the tv. “That’s you?”

He nodded.

She sat down next to him, holding an arm out in a clear gesture - he leaned against her side as she wrapped it around him again, and he just. 

Sat there, and breathed a bit. 

Blinked a lot, trying to dissipate the gathering tears. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Connie murmured softly, her hand coming up to mess with the curls at the base of his neck. And he - he thought about it for a moment, before shaking his head, exhaling deeply as he leaned his head against her shoulder.

“Not really,” he whispered. “I just - it’s nothing really - big? Just - some bad memories. It’s neither here nor now.” And he breathed in, held it - _one, two, three, four_ \- and let it back out again. “Just was caught off guard by them, I guess.” 

“That’s fine,” Connie nodded, rubbing his back. “So long as _you’re_ fine.”

They watched as the screen flickered, once, twice, before going black - then static for a moment, as the monitor was rebooted by the staff up front presumably.

And he sighed, closed his eyes - focused a bit on his breathing once again, on the feeling of Connie’s shoulder against his cheek. He quietly held out his open hand, and she took it into her own, and he focused on that, tuning out the buzzing in his ears to just - be present. 

To be fine.

\---

And to his surprise - he _was_ fine, it turned out? 

Daniel and Patricia came back, teased the two of them something _awful_ for their position that they were found in, and then they all went back to singing. 

And Steven held Connie’s hand for a bit, worked on grounding himself a bit more - before insisting that she get up there and belt out her favorite _Malina and The Stones_ song, the one about trees. And then he got up after a few more rounds, because somehow they had _I’m Too Famous_ , and oh man - he still remembered the routine, and everyone _laughed_ , cheered him on as he vogued it up. 

And it was fine, and it was fun, and it - it was a great time, really. 

Steven said as much on their drive back, hours later, when the sun had long since disappeared and they were reminded by Patricia’s dad calling and insisting that they get home soon - had long since given each other hugs and had parted ways. 

And Connie smiled at him knowingly, her hands folded in her lap. “You know,” she said quietly after a moment, looking down at them. “You really - really impressed me tonight, back there. Like - and I don’t mean to sound condescending or anything -”

“You’re not, don’t worry,” he interjected, and found himself smiling back. “Thanks.” 

“Really - I’m, uhm. Proud of you? Like, you walked yourself down from that edge like a champ, and I know how hard that can be, and I just -” She shrugged a little, before leaning over and giving him another quick kiss on the cheek, like she had done hours earlier. “You really rocked. And Daniel and Patricia think you’re, like, the coolest guy ever, too, they told me!”

He laughed. “No way, me?”

“Yes, you! Oh, hey, it’s this one- “ Connie turned up the radio, as the opening lines of _Peach Trees_ played. “Come on, car karaoke time!”

“Don’t you mean - _car-e-oke?”_ And he laughed as she screamed a bit, and they sang along as they drove into the night. 

(And later, he would write all this down in his book that he took with him to therapy, would go over the incident with Dr. A and would probably end up feeling - weird about it and all. Would probably end up shrugging like, fifteen billion times about it all, maybe even cry a little. But for now? 

For now, he was good.)

\---  
  



	12. day 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it hurts.

_He was a monster, now. His words had been the magical touch, his self-loathing boiling over to the point where he had destroyed himself._

~~help me please~~

_And with that he felt - an immense sense of relief._

_Because now - now they were all seeing his_ true _self!_

_There was no more pretending. No more faking it, no more being a fraud. The Steven that they thought of before, of him being such a perfect person, kind and considerate and someone who was always there to help others, no matter what? That Steven was gone, now, obliterated completely, corrupted out of existence._

~~im so scared~~

_And it was_ better _\- his family, friends, loved ones now could see him for who he was!_

 _They could_ hate _him for who he was!_

~~please~~

_They could kill him for who he was!_

_This - this was what he had been waiting for all along. This, his transformation, was freedom - it was what he had been looking for these past few weeks, had been searching for across the galaxy. He was unleashed._

~~please~~

_He was powerful, he was destructive, he was_ dangerous.

_He was a murderer, had been destined to destroy others since before his own birth! Things he had seen for so, so long, had tried so hard to keep buried under the surface, but now he - he was free!_

_It felt great, it felt wonderful._

_\---_

(“Steven, I want you to be careful with this question, but - what do you remember of that time?” Dr. A said to him, a concerned look on her face; her clipboard on the desk next to her. She held her hands in her lap, looking at him, studying him. 

“I don’t… really remember it at all, to be honest? Just, well -"

~~it hurts~~

Steven paused, then shrugged.

"... no, not really anything. ”)

\---


	13. day 180

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven avoids, and confesses.
> 
> (cw: bad thoughts, brief warning for emetophobia)

“How’s your anxiety doing, Steven?”

It was an average sort of question from Dr. A, one of the many ones she asked every time they did intake - one of the many ones that Steven was incredibly used to, by now. They always made him stop and think, reflect back on the past week’s ups and downs and try to sum it all up in a number, and even with that - sometimes the numbers he picked caught him off guard. 

Like today’s answers.

“Honestly, kind of high,” he answered truthfully, after a moment. “Maybe around a 6 or 7?”

She frowned lightly, nodding her head and jotting that down, but otherwise not commenting on it - which was fine. By now, Steven knew that they would get to discussing it after the intake, and he - he had showed up prepared for it, too, his notebook had a full page written in it about how he was just so keyed up lately, and maybe they needed to adjust his meds the next time they saw Dr. Smoke, because he was kind of plateau-ing a bit, that was definitely a thing he had read about online! 

He pulled out the book itself from his bag and began thumbing through to the page, later on in the book (and this was his second one, now, the first one hidden way under his mattress where no one would ever think to look). 

“How has your sleep been as of late? Over-sleeping, under-sleeping, any sort of nightmares?” 

He looked up from the page he was stopped on, a midsummer ramble about how he had been upset over the lack of trust he felt from the Gems in regards to reporting on his own mood - “oh, uh,” he stammered, closing his eyes briefly to think on it. “Not great, no. Uh, under-sleeping?” He shrugged, giving her her own small frown back to her. “And, uh, nightmares - yeah, definitely.”

“Hmm, those haven’t happened in a while. What do you think could’ve happened to bring them back?” She twirled her pen idly between her fingers as she flipped back on the clipboard, looking over some of her previous notes. “Or are these new ones?”

And he - he blinked, looked down as he thought about them - 

_I have been -_

\- for the briefest second, before he did his best to shake them from his mind. No, now wasn’t the time for that.

“They’re… they’re not new,” Steven said after a moment, and it sounded like it echoed behind his ears, in the room itself. “They just, uh. Kind of went away, for a bit - had other things to be worried about, I guess.” He paused. Swallowed. “But I guess they’re back, now that I’ve worked out how I feel about people folding my socks wrong.”

He laughed at his own joke.

Dr. A didn’t laugh back. “Would you like to talk about it, then?” she said, and the sincerity was layered in her voice as she folded her hands, giving him a look overflowing with sympathy. “It would be helpful, especially if it’s a recurring nightmare of yours - that’s a very common thing, really, with your condition. I can get you a worksheet, actually, on how to-”

“ _No,_ ” he said firmly, and he was - caught off guard with how much it sounded like a shout, almost. “No, no. It’s not a problem, it’s just - just a nightmare, c’mon! Everyone has those, why should I waste our time talking about… that…”

Dr. A was giving him a look, now, one that she had given him _many_ times before. “Do I need to do the whole spiel, or are you good?” she droned, waving her pen at him. And he signed, shook his head no - because he _knew_ it already. 

“‘Stop minimizing your own problems, Steven,’” he recited dully. “‘Your own issues are just as important as everyone else’s, why do they deserve help when you don’t’ - yeah, I get it.” He scowled, pulling his knees up to his chest as he scooted back a bit on the couch, pressing his back into the cushions. “Still doesn’t mean I wanna talk about it.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because -” and he paused, words leaving him as the answer struck him upside the head, because he knew _exactly_ why he didn’t want to tell her about it - because then he would have to explain the route cause of his dreams, and then she would hate him, would probably - _fire_ him as a patient, and he’d either get arrested or would just go home and probably die - “because I just _don’t_ , ok? Can we talk about something else?”

His therapist stared at him for a moment longer, waiting… and then she nodded, jotting down a note on her pad, and they continued on, the topic abandoned.

\---

That night - he had the nightmare _again_. 

Except, if possible, it was worse, because - it wasn’t a memory anymore, it wasn’t the replay of the horrible, horrible thing he had done, no - it was _new_ , and horrific, and - worse, so much worse than the real thing, because -

\- because at least there hadn’t been _blood_ , when he -

He gripped the sides of his head, pulled on his hair hard, trying to clear the image from his mind. Because he had - 

_I dreamt that I killed my -_

He felt sick. 

“Steven, are you okay?” he heard from below, as Pearl quickly made her way up the stairs into his room, concern clearly splayed right across her face ( _the same way that the blood had been strewn across -)._ “Oh, stars - you look white as a ghost, what happened?”

Eyes watering, he shook his head at her, hard, as he covered his mouth with his hand. Oh, he felt _sick,_ felt like he was going to hurl if he spoke, because - because _god_ , how _messed up_ was he?! How messed up was his stupid brain going to get before it broke completely, _shattered -_

“Steven, wait - where are you going - Steven?!”

\---

_Gross._

Humiliated, he numbly accepted the mug of tea from Pearl; his face twitched in an attempt at a smile, but he knew there was zero chance it made it onto his face completely, with the mortification he felt so strongly overpowering it. “There better be caffeine in this,” he murmured hoarsely.

She tutted at him, sitting down next to him on the couch. “There’s not, unfortunately - it’s peppermint, to soothe your throat. Steven, why didn’t you tell us you were getting sick?” She folded her hands in her lap for a moment, concern evident on her face. “I know we’re not the best at taking care of humans, and you haven’t gotten fully sick in a while, but, oh - let me see if you have a fever.” And she held her hand up, palm away as to feel his forehead -

\- and he _flinched_ , harder than he had in months, sloshing the hot liquid onto the floor. 

She blinked, looked down at the spilt tea. “Steven…?” she said, carefully, and he winced even further. Found himself hunching over into a ball because, oh, he _hated_ when she got this tone, when she put her worry on clear display like this, and he was the _cause_ once again, like he _always was_ \- “what’s going on…?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he whispered, forcing himself to take a sip of the drink - it was far too hot for him still, scalded his already raw throat as it went down, burning the inside of his mouth for a brief moment. “Nothing, Pearl, I’m _fine_. It was, it was just a nightmare, and then - something I ate must’ve sat wrong with me, or something like that, and I just - sorry, I’ll get a towel and clean up, sorry, I - “ He shook his head, hard, wincing as the sides of his head stung briefly with the movement. “Sorry, sorry -”

And he stood up, well aware of his own rambling now as he sat the mug down, walked over to the kitchen to grab one of the dish towels hanging up, and he walked over and began to mop up the peppermint, except that -

\- except that for some reason, it kept getting wet? When he was wiping it up, droplets kept falling on the floor, and - 

\- _oh_. 

He was crying again.

Steven sat down on the ground, then and there, covering his face with the half-dampened towel - partially to hide his face, his _tears_ from making even more of a mess, but mostly to hide his shame; he had been doing so well, lately, everyone had said as much so many times to him, and what, he was upset now? Because he had a _dream_?

_\- that I killed my doctor -_

There was a horrible wailing noise, then, and it took him a moment, took Pearl’s hands on his shoulders for him to realize that it was _him_ , he was the one making that noise. And he wailed some more, louder, shaking his head and hiding his face fully in his knees. 

“I-i’m a _monster_ , Pearl,” he sobbed, his heart heavier than it had been since - since he had melted down prior, and he knew then that he must be alight once more, must be glowing pink, and he could only imagine the fear on Pearl’s face as he uttered those words -

“You’re - you’re not, Steven,” she said hurriedly, rubbing circles into his shoulders with her thumbs, and he felt a weight on the top of his head - her chin, he realized after a moment, when she spoke. “You’re _not_ a monster, Steven, no matter what your dreams told you. You told me about them before, remember? Dreams are just - just made up images that your mind tells you, to fill the time while you’re asleep. Not that you’re not right to be upset by them, no, if you had a bad one!” she quickly added, “but it wasn’t _real_ , Steven, you didn’t - whatever it is that happened in there, didn’t _really_ happen.” 

_It sure felt like it did,_ he thought to himself, as he did his best to reign in his crying, choking once more on a sob. 

He heard the sound of the door in the back opening up, then, the sound of footsteps - of _course_ , his stupid dream, his _stupid_ reaction had brought out everyone else, too. “What’s goin’ on?!” he heard Amethyst shout, as she and Garnet ran over to him and Pearl, and he felt himself curl in even tighter, shrugging his shoulders harshly as to throw Pearl’s delicate hands off of him. 

He didn’t - he didn’t deserve their comfort, didn’t deserve to - to not feel as awful as he did - _he was a -_

“Steven,” he heard Garnet’s voice, booming as she knelt down in front of him. “You _need_ to calm down. We’re going to do your breathing exercises right now, so please breathe along with me. One, two, three, “ and she breathed in, holding her breath for a moment before loudly exhaling it. “Steven, come on. One, two, three-” 

He breathed into the towel, the mint scent filling his nose and mouth for a moment. 

“That’s good, hold it. Then let it out, slowly.”

He held onto his breath - before a sob broke it, and he shook his head. Oh, this was _bad_ , this was _awful_ , he was - he was going to _transform_ again - he was going to - 

He felt Garnet’s hands ( _gauntlets_ ) on his shoulders, firm and heavy - they seemed to ground him, a bit, and if they didn’t, the three blankets Amethyst piled on him a second later definitely would’ve done the trick. 

“Come on, Steven, breathe - look, we’ll all do it with you!” And he heard Amethyst suck in - a _comical_ amount of air, could feel it vacuum against his hair as she did so, before she held it and then - _blew_ it against his face, could feel it even with the towel covering it.

And he - he laughed, a bit, sniffling horribly as he did his best to mirror the combined breathing efforts of the Gems.

And he, slowly but surely, felt himself come back down.

\---

As predicted, then they wanted to _talk_ about it, talk about what had set him off in such a spectacular way. And he - he didn’t want to, with anyone, but certainly not with the Gems. No, if he was going to be talking this topic out, it was going to be in the proper setting, where -

\- where hopefully he wouldn’t explode. 

Of course, his next therapy appointment wasn’t scheduled for another two weeks this time, and he soon discovered that his nightmares were a bit - more recurrent than they had been previously. It was as if his stupid hell-brain was punishing him now for refusing to talk about it - and it was only on the fourth night of nearly no sleep, of seeing the stones below his glowing pink shields covered in red, that he broke.

“Hi, Steven,” he heard Dr. A say over the phone, “what’s up? It’s pretty rare of you to call during the week.”

“I need help,” he answered honestly, as if it wasn’t apparent already - it was 8:00 AM on the dot, and he had called in literally the second he knew the office was open; he had been up since before 4 that morning. “I, uh, r-remember when we talked about my, my nightmares?”

“Yes, I do. I take it that they haven’t gone away?” she said calmly.

“Ha ha, _no_ \- no, they haven’t, they’re - they’re getting worse, and I - I can’t _sleep_ , and, and - can I come in? Is there, is there _any_ way I can come in before next week, because I don’t -”

“Steven, Steven,” she said calmly but sternly over the phone, and he paused to listen to her. “Is this a medical emergency?”

“Wh- no, no, I don’t think so, I - I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you, I’m just - _so_ tired, but I’m scared? To go back to sleep, and I.” He took a deep breath, his head spinning a bit. “I’d like to… to talk about them, if you have the time. B-but I know my next appointment isn’t for another-”

“Luckily for you, Steven,” she interrupted him, as he heard the rustling of papers, “today’s partially my office day - I don’t have any appointments scheduled after noon. So I expect to see you here then right on the _dot,_ okay? Get your father to drive you, too, especially if you haven’t been sleeping, and if you can - try to at least rest, take it easy even if you’re not sleeping. Okay?”

He murmured a quiet ‘okay’, confirmed the appointment - and they both hung up. 

He stared at his phone for a second, before thumbing through his contacts. One, two, three rings. 

“Hey, dad…?”

\---

And so, Steven found himself on the couch of his therapist’s office for the second time that week. 

Despite how firm her words has sounded over the phone, her concern was clearly evident, especially as she took in his red eyes, his bags, the droop of his shoulders as he quietly stumbled in. He caught a glimpse of the look she and his dad gave each other as she had come out to grab him, and it had - it had been bad, to say the least. And so he was there, once again.

“How are your -”

“Ten, ten, _yes_ they’re present, and no I haven’t been sleeping. _Please_ -” he found himself begging, wrapping his arms even tighter around himself, his fingers gripping into his jacket. “I, I _need_ to talk about this, I need to - before I lose my nerve, okay?”

She nodded, sat her board back down on the desk and sat herself down in her chair, scooting it closer to him than she usually sat. “Okay. Tell me, then, Steven - what are your nightmares about?”

And he - he scrunched his eyes closed, tight, to the point where stars danced in front of his eyes.

“One time,” he said dimly, his voice barely a whisper. “One time, I - I got carried away, with a - a friend of mine, I guess you could call her that now? But we weren’t really friends at the time, though, she tried to kill me a few times - anyways, I was, uh, having a bad time, so I went to her - her cave in the mountains, she’s a Gem by the way - I went to her cave, to escape from everyone. And she - she told me that everyone was holding me back, that I was scared of myself, that the only way for me to feel better was - was to be _powerful_ , was to be _angry_ , was to _hate._ And she, she demanded that I fight her, and I was just - so hurt, so _stupid_ that I agreed, and we - we trained in the woods, for days, and then -”

“Breathe, Steven,” he heard his therapist say, from what sounded like a million miles away.

“- then, we fought, and, uhm. I, uh, got carried away with it, and, I, uhm.” He swallowed. Opened his mouth. “I, uh.”

“You hurt her…?” Dr. A offered.

“I _shattered_ her,” he hissed, and he found his hands back in his hair then, his torso bent fully over so that his face was pressed against his knees. “I _shattered Jasper,_ I - I killed her, I did it, her Gem broke, and she - I _shattered her_.”

There was a moment of silence, that seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

“You… you said she’s your friend now, though…?” she said, ever so carefully, and he could only imagine the look on her ( _blood stained_ ) face. 

He nodded. 

“So, she’s… she’s still alive, then, right?”

“I healed her,” he whispered, shaking his head once again. “I healed her, with the Diamond essences, with my - my tears, they fixed her. She’s at Little Homeworld, now, I’ve seen her a few times.” _Not like it ever got any easier to, though._

Dr. A was silent for a moment more, before she sighed; he could see her crossing her ankles underneath her. “Steven, I... I want you to listen to me, okay?” He nodded. “What you did - shattering this, this Jasper friend of yours - obviously you feel pretty horrible about it. And that’s… that’s understandable. Tell me, Steven - what does Jasper think about this?”

“S-she,” he murmured, sniffling hard as he felt his eyes easily water back up, like they had been doing consistently over the past few days. “She… doesn’t care, I think? She, she calls me ‘my Diamond’, now, says that I bested her in combat, but - but I didn’t, she doesn’t _get_ it, she could’ve been gone _forever -_ ”

“But you brought her back, right? Listen,” and she sighed. “I’m not going to lie - it sounds like you did something that you dearly wish you hadn’t. I don’t quite, er, understand the semantics of ‘shattering’ -” 

He winced. 

“ - but you hurt one of your friends, and now you’re dealing with - with what sounds like a lot of guilt, a lot of regret. And Steven, though it may feel like you’re completely and totally alone with this, you’re not alone in feeling those feelings. We can work through those, we can process through your thoughts and nightmares. But you need to give yourself permission, first.”

“Permission for what,” he said hoarsely, his hands dropping from his head, stinging sharply as they moved his hair against his scalp. “To - to what, not feel bad about - about _shattering_ someone?”

“To put it bluntly - yes. Did you mean to shatter her?”

“What - no!” His face snapped up, horror on his face - _of course, now she thinks I’m a -_ “No, no, no - I didn’t, I didn’t mean to do it, it was a-an accident!”

She nodded back at him. “Would you shatter her again?”

He gaped, could feel his heart practically skip a beat. “ _No!_ ” 

“And Jasper herself doesn’t seem to really mind, as far as we know -” 

“ _You don’t get it!!”_ he _roared._

And he could see it in her glasses, once again, that he was pink, could see his hands in front of him where he had thrown them open angrily, and he heard the papers in the room rustle as he let out a wave of energy, but to her credit - Dr. A didn’t flinch. She just blinked at him, calmly, before -

Before she scooted forward, gently and carefully taking his hand into her own two.

“I don’t, Steven,” she said softly, looking down at the glow.

“But that’s what I’m here for - to try to understand, so that you can understand it all _yourself_. You must be in so much pain right now, with how you’ve been feeling about this, how you’ve kept it to yourself, but - we can work through this now, okay? We can work through this, trust me.” 

And he - he nodded. Found himself watching the glow slowly recede, before his knees - grew weak, as he fell to them, her quickly kneeling down with him on his descent. 

“Okay,” he said. “I trust you.”

“Okay, then,” she said back. “Then let’s get to work.”

\---


	14. day 241 (part one)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven has an idea.

The thing is, Steven was pretty sure his idea? Was _excellent._

He had mapped his trip all out already - like a responsible adult and all! Well, as much as he could anyways, at this stage - he still wanted to check with his dad to make sure it was ok to take the Dondai as far as he was planning to; and he didn’t have Connie check his plans over _just_ yet, that was for later, but had brought the idea up to her and she had agreed with him on a conceptual level - that he needed to get out of Beach City for a bit. 

(Ok, so maybe he hadn’t said it in _those_ exact words to her either, but the sentiment was still the same.)

And with that bit of encouragement, he had begun trying to map out mileage, had delved into one of the many atlases the Gems had gathered over the years (though a few of them were from up to forty, fifty years ago and were most likely useless, so he turned to the Maps app on his phone and spent a good few hours clicking around on there, just imagining, daydreaming about his journey), had prepped what he was going to say to everyone and all! He had thought hard about what clothes he was going to bring (probably black star shirts, he was leaning towards), had a rough timeline for how long he was planning on being gone -

It was really great, to have - something like this to be excited over. Something to finally look forward to, after so long of just staying at home, bumming around and doing nothing at all except feeling worse and worse. 

But first, he knew he needed to talk it over with his therapist, because - because he had finally gotten _somewhere_ , had made a good number of miraculous breakthroughs in his mental health! And she would be excited, too, he imagined, because this was another big step for him, the biggest of them all - him finally seeking true independence from his problems. It would be great!

 _And_ it was spring, and he had made it through the gloom and doom of winter intact (mostly) - and spring was all about new beginnings, new adventures, right? It made perfect timing, perfect sense for him to set out now, as the trees were a soft, pale pink in bloom. He was sure of it.

\---

And so he told all of that to her. And she - 

“I’m not sure I think it’s a good idea to be honest, Steven,” Dr. A said after a lengthy pause of consideration, and Steven could feel his good mood, his _face_ drop like a stone. 

“Wh- why not?!” he stuttered, looking down at his notes, the third journal where he had cobbled together his trip argument (one that he was going to try on his doctor first, and then the Gems if it had worked, but -); he gripped the decently worn book tightly between his two fists. “I, you don’t get it - I’m, I _need_ this, I need to get out and, and see the world! I’ve only ever been in Beach City, in Delmarva, and there’s just - so much out there, and -” 

“Steven, Steven,” she interrupted, and his mouth snapped shut; his glare was practically burning holes into the paper with its intensity. “I think your anxiety is speaking over you a little. Hear me out, okay?” 

He nodded mutely.

Dr. A began flipping through her notes on him, by this point in time a fairly thick stack - listings of all the appointments, of all his thoughts and mistakes and _errors_ , cobbled together in one nice little book for her to reference in times like this. “I’m not saying it’s not a good idea, don’t get me wrong - I just think that, perhaps, your planning, your timing might be a bit… off. This winter was particularly rough, right?”

She paused, waiting for his answer expectantly; cheeks hot with embarrassment, he shrugged, could feel the scowl on his face. 

\---

Because she was right - it hadn’t been particularly a good winter, no.

Because it turns out that, much like the temperamental houseplants he used to watch over in the greenhouse (that was now mostly abandoned, though he had done a good sweep-through of it a few months back, had combed through and tossed out the unsalvageable bits that it would’ve been cruel to bring back with his spit, and he had meant to get back in there, get back to work but every time he remembered Peridot’s class running away), his mood seemed to be at least somewhat dependant on the sun - and he had discovered that the shorter days did an absolute _number_ on his state of mind. 

He had found himself with a penchant for oversleeping to the worst degree that winter, much like he did right after his breakdown - but even worse, because _before,_ he had known that it was the result of - of _something_ solid, a moment in time with a pin through it, the very date etched into his mind as a day zero. It was solid as a reasoning, that _before_ state, instead of a weird fugue of persistent melancholy that seemed to sap the very energy from his veins just by existing.

And with his oversleeping came his bad mood - finding himself irritable, snapping at the Gems more often than a kind word was exchanged, it felt like. He felt like he had switched places with Cactus Steven, almost - he was so _prickly_ now, that even Connie at times received the brunt of his attitude. 

(And of course he would always apologize profusely, once he had calmed down enough to realize the errors of his tongue, but still - it wasn’t great.)

Of course, partially that could be attributed to his new medication and the switching of dosages Dr. Smoke had him doing - because of course, when it felt like one was doing ok, then it was upped, and when that one didn’t work, then it was switched, then when that one _really_ didn’t work it was switched back, and a new one added with it - 

No, his winter had been bad, to put it mildly enough. 

\---

“B-but,” he protested, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, to bring him back to the present - “ - but that’s done, right? It’s not winter _anymore_ , it’s - it’s spring, and I’ve been feeling way, way better, too! You said as much last week, right?” She nodded, but the pensive look didn’t slip from her face, not even a smidge, and he felt his anger bubbling deep within his gut, under his gem. “ _You_ said that I had made it through, and I should celebrate, and - and that’s what this would be! A celebration, getting out of the house and striking it out on my own now that I’m all better!”

“Steven -”

“Or, or what - am I _not_ better, now?” He shook his head hard, then, closing his notebook with a snap and tossing it against where his bag lay on the floor. “When does this all _end?!_ ”

“ _Steven.”_ And oh, she had that look on her face now, the sort of quiet pity she got when he was - was throwing a tantrum and she had to calm him down - “Listen to me, it’s a process, okay? And you’re doing much better, but -”

“But _what_ ?! Am I doing better or _not_ ?!” And he was standing now, not quite alight yet but he could feel the energy crackling against his skin, the pink energy threatening to spill out of his gem, _again_ , because - because it was just so _unfair,_ and -

His therapist just stared at him, patiently. 

Nodded at the couch behind him after a moment. 

“Please sit back down, Steven.”

He did.

“Therapy - _recovery_ , Steven, is a process,” Dr. A said carefully. “It’s not linear - you don’t just start to talk about your problems and get better in a straight slope up. There’s going to be pitfalls, there’s going to be things that you uncover along the way - like our talk about Rose, or your friend Jasper -” 

He winced, he couldn’t help it. The memory of _that_ conversation was still clear in his mind, even months later.

“- those things are going to happen, and I _know_ it’s frustrating. You’ve put in a lot of work over the course of this year so far, and don’t get me wrong - you’ve grown a lot, too.” She sighed then, flipping a few pages back in her notes, checking through his past mistakes and flaws for evidence. “But even as recently as three sessions ago, you were rating your symptoms pretty high, we were talking about how you felt keyed up... “

And Steven felt himself deflate, because she was right - of course she was right. He _had_ been marking himself with 6s, 7s, and a few 10s throughout winter, and there was no way he could go back and - and change that, pretend that he had been fine all along, because it was done and recorded in blue ink on her pages. 

“Your trip sounds like a fun time, and I applaud you for how - well intentioned it is, but it also sounds like a lot of work, a lot of time by yourself - a really big _change_. Not to mention, you’re still legally a minor -”

“I just don’t think I can endorse it for you as a good idea, at this time.”

“I’m sorry.” 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the delay in getting this chapter out! sorry its a little short too - this day is gonna be a multipart one tho, because i have unlimited power - and it just seemed to make more sense that way, soooo we'll see what happens... muahaha.


	15. day 241 (part two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven drives.

The rest of the session had been a total wash. 

It was a small miracle that he didn’t go pink the entire time, because he sure felt like he was three seconds away from it the whole time - but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure what they tried to talk about for the remaining fifty or so minutes, but Steven knew he was being defensive, combative, or just plain not paying attention to most of what his therapist was saying; by the end of it he had turned to mostly monosyllabic answers and shrugging, eager to just - get out. 

A part of him knew it was intentional, too, because stars forbid he give her anything _else_ to write down, if it was going to keep the lock on him being in Beach City further. If it was just furthering the case that Steven Universe was broken, cracked in such a way that he was never, ever, ever going to be allowed to leave the town he was born into, cursed into - why should he say anything? Heck, why should he participate in therapy at all, at this point? 

“So, I’ll see you next Monday, then?” Dr. A had said to him on his way out, as she handed him the session recap sheet that printed off at the end of each of his sessions. “And really, Steven - six months, okay.”

 _Six months._ That was what she had explained to him - that if he wanted her _permission_ (and he knew it wasn’t really permission, because she wasn’t his - his _mom_ or anything like that -) to go on a big, life-changing tour of the thirty-nine states, he’d only get it if he showed continuous improvement and stability for that amount of time. 

“ _It’s not exact_ ,” she had clarified at his aghast face when she had told him that, “ _more so just a guideline, but it’s really just - we want to make sure you’re in a good place when you start off, that you’ve really thought this decision through and all._ ”

He gritted his teeth, and pushed his way out the door, not saying anything in response. 

\---

Of course, his restrained anger was due to hit him before too long - he was lucky he was alone when it did, at least. He had been on the drive back home, had decided to take one of the further roads to get back - because his mind was spinning, faster and faster as he drove along, Dr. A’s words repeating in his mind - 

“But I _have_ thought it through,” he hissed to himself, pounding a fist against his steering wheel. “Why does everyone think I’m just a stupid _kid_ still?!” Because they did - not only his doctors, but Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, his dad - they all treated him like he didn’t know what he was doing anymore, like he was just _so_ out of control all the time, that he was threatening to turn into another monster at any given moment -

 _Oh,_ he noted as he heard the wheel crunch a bit under his fist - and _there_ was the glow. 

He pulled the car over by the side of the road, turned the ignition off. Stepped out and just. 

Wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, now. He knew what he _should_ be doing - he should practice his breathing, or go for a walk, or - or something, in his overflowing toolbox of how to handle these things, but he also just - wanted to _scream_ , and punch a hole through the side of the car, and, and - 

Instead, he settled for stomping over to the side of a billboard, a few meters away; he sat down on the ground and leaned against its wooden post, hands covering his face. And he was breathing, but it was ragged, and angry, and he was just so - so _mad_.

And that was ok, too, as he recalled what had been said to him, months and months ago by this point - that s long as he didn’t cause any destruction, as long as it didn’t overwhelm him, anger was - was okay. He was _allowed_ to get upset over things like not being taken seriously, so long as that anger was grounded in reality, in fact (which it definitely was, this time). He was _allowed_ to be upset at the actions and words of others, it didn’t make him the worser person for it - 

But still. He was still pink, and that needed to come down. 

So he sighed, it coming out harsh like a shout, and focused on breathing in and out, until he felt the static dissipate from his skin, from his eyes. 

\---

He wasn’t sure how long it took for him to fully calm himself down, but it was - later, definitely. Probably closer to noon, if he could guess from how high the sun was up in the sky; his appointment had been early on, so he gathered that he had been sitting outside by the side of the road for at least an hour, if not more.

It was lucky that he had taken the back roads, too - only a few cars had driven by the entire time he was out there, and no one had stepped out to bother him, either. Steven had been lulled back to a steady baseline by the sound of the newly returned birds, of their chittering; of the wind blowing through the trees, and if he imagined it just right, he could hear the ocean’s crashing waves (though he wasn’t sure if this road took him close enough, or if it was just his imagination).

With a groan, he stood himself back up, pulling his phone at last out of his front pocket and checking it. There were no new messages, but he supposed that it was still early, and the Gems by now knew that it could easily take him a few hours post-session to return back (and had re-learned that during the winter, because oh, did _those_ sessions require some care afterwards, and he had been just - so agitated, had snapped at them so much, so he realized that he needed to keep away, to decompress a bit before re-entering society). 

“I’d be fine on my own,” he whispered out loud to himself, climbing up the embankment back towards the Dondai. “I’ve practically been alone my whole life - she just doesn’t get it.” And the more he thought about it, the more he thought about how just _wrong_ it was, that she had suggested he not go - 

\- the more he thought of doing it _anyways._

Steven’s hand froze on the driver’s side door, as he stared down at it. That was always an option - he could just. Get in the car and go, and not tell anyone. Or could tell them later, when he was miles and miles away, far away, where no one could stop him. 

It made _sense_. He had the car, he had his bank card with plenty of money on it (he hoped, anyways, but - he could sing, could busk for money, that was a thing people did -), and he had grown up sleeping in a van, so the Dondai really wouldn’t be that different. 

It didn’t have to be forever, but maybe it could be? He could just - leave, and drive around and be _free_ of Beach City and all the memories it held, as long as he wanted, and he had his phone, and - 

Before he knew it, he was back in the Dondai, car on, and was on the road - away from Beach City.

\---

He made it another three hours before he got his first call. 

\---

He made it another three hours _after_ that, before he got his first call that he answered. 

“Hey, Connie!” Steven said cheerfully, balancing his phone between his face and his shoulder. He twisted his back a little in his seat; he was getting a little stiff after driving for so long. “What’s up?”

“Oh, hey Steven - where are you?” came Connie’s voice over the phone, and the concern (that he had expected, so it was okay) was evident in her tone. “Pearl just called me and said you never came back from Dr. Akiyama’s this morning, she asked if you were with me but I didn’t get her message until just now, so - yeah. Are you ok?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine - totally fine!” He smiled, pulling off the highway into a rest stop; he was fine talking and driving at the same time, but it was getting to be pretty dark out, and he didn’t want to risk anything. “Hey, so, I’ve got exciting news - remember when I mentioned to you that I was considering going on a tour of all thirty-nine states?”

“Yeah?” was Connie’s reply. “You mentioned wanting to check out the states, yeah...”

“Well, guess who’s started that tour already?” He laughed a little, as he shifted the car into park; it would be good to stretch his legs a little. “It’s me! I mean, there’s no time like the present, right? And -”

“Steven, you - _where are you?_ ” Connie interrupted; Steven shrugged as he got out of the car, squinting at a plaque hanging up next to where a bunch of vending machines were arranged. The rest stop was mostly abandoned at this time at night, but there were a few trucker rigs pulled over near the side; he wondered briefly if that’s where he should park, too. Was that the designated sleeping area?

“Uhh… according to this sign I’m looking at, I’m at the Route 4 rest stop.”

“And that is where…?”

He blinked, reading on further. “...huh. Just outside of State School, Keystone -”

“ _Why are you in Keystone?!_ ” came her frantic reply, tinny but loud through his phone’s speakers; he winced as it sounded right into his ear. “Steven, don’t tell me you - you _ran away_?!”

“What - no!” Scowling, he made his way over towards the vending machines; he had picked up some food at a plaza a few hours ago, but he was curious to see what sort of snacks they had. “I didn’t run away, c’mon! I started my little journey of self-discovery earlier than expected, that’s all - listen, I, I talked it over with my therapist, and she didn’t say it was a _bad_ idea, so - ”

Aw, shoot. The vending machines didn’t take card. He dug through his pockets, wondering if he had some spare cash on himself. 

“so I decided to just, you know. Go for it?” he finished, pulling out his empty pockets. Bummer. 

“That’s - what are you _talking_ about, Steven?! That’s - hold on -” There was the sound of her chair scraping loud against her floor, the sound of moving around in her room, of her running down the stairs -

“Connie?” he said, looking down at his phone for a moment. There was no reply, as the line went dead. 

But then -

Steven took a step back, as a familiar pink portal ripped itself into the air a few paces from him, and with a roar, Lion jumped through, skidding a bit as he landed on the grass. And Connie was there, climbing down from Lion’s back almost immediately and scanning the area for him - she seemed to lock on as soon as she spotted him, and she looked - mad? She looked _furious._

“ _Steven Quartz Universe,_ what are you doing at the Route 4 rest stop in Keystone at _six in the evening_ !” she said, as she stomped up to him, and as she got closer he could see that - her shoulders were shaking? She was shaking, she was so livid, and she marched up to him and - poked him in the chest, practically, barely restraining herself. “The Gems are worried _sick,_ you didn’t tell anyone? Not even your dad?! Steven -” 

“I was going to,” he squeaked, voice suddenly small in the face of her wrath.

“- and sure, yeah, I said that going on a road trip would be good, but -” She flung her arms wide, gesturing around at the quiet spring night; he was dimly aware that she was dressed far too lightly for the dropping temperature. “ _\- this_ isn’t what I meant, Steven! What were you _thinking?!_ ” 

“I - I was -” he stammered, shaking his head as his own anger began to rise back up, quickly, like a geyser - “What did you _mean_ , then? Because this - you said this was a good idea, this was partially -”

“Later!” she practically yelled, fists in angry balls at her side. “Later, once the weather is nicer, and once we actually planned what a trip would entail, and - and once you were feeling _better_!”

“I _am_ better!” he yelled back, shaking his head hard. 

“Not better enough to - to just run away like this, Steven! This is - this is _crazy!”_

He knew he was pink. Didn’t even have to see the glow itself to know.

“So I’m _crazy_ , now?!” And he stomped his feet, could feel the ground beneath him crack. “So now I’m _crazy_ , too, not just - stupid, and broken, and depressed and anxious and whatever else everyone says I am - now I’m _crazy_?!” He stomped again. “Well, fine then!!”

Connie took a step back, two, three. “That’s, that’s not what I said,” she said cautiously. 

“ _BUT IT’S TRUE!”_ he bellowed - 

And the ground beneath him _crumbled,_ with the force of his rage. He heard it like a sonic boom, the indent caused by his anger; he watched Connie quickly stumble backwards with the force of it, dust flying into the air from the concrete, her arms thrown up in a defensive posture. And she looked at him, her eyes wide with fear, and - 

And time just. Stopped. 

Ground to a halt, as he turned on his heels and ran off into the night.

_\---_

__

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops!


	16. day 241 (part three)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven tilts.
> 
> (cw: panic attack)

He had messed up. 

Steven finally stopped his running after what felt like a literal eternity, his face and neck and back damp with perspiration in the oddly humid, thick air - but a quick glance at his phone, a quick timestamp check revealed it had been only about ten minutes since Connie had hung up on him, before she had warped over on Lion. 

With his sped-up diamond time, however - and his eyes burning from the wind, and his anger/rage/self-hatred clouding his view - that was long enough of a time to be running through the thick trees of the Keystone hills, to get him thoroughly and completely lost. 

“Good,” he grumbled to himself as he turned around slowly, realizing that he had managed to completely disorient himself by doing so; he threw his hands into the air in anger. “Good, that’s _perfect_ , Steven. Now you’re lost, on top of everything else!”

Lost, on top of the fact that he had _ran away from home._

On top of the fact that he was six hours outside of Beach City in the middle of another state, on top of the fact that he was about three seconds away from having another melt-down in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere - on top of all that, he had yelled at, screamed at _Connie_. 

Connie, who had been by his side through thick and thin, who loved him and came all the way out to the middle of a rest stop to try to talk him down from making a huge mistake - because he knew now, this had all been a mistake, he had been so stupid, and - he had _screamed_ at her, with his stupid Diamond powers. Had wrecked the ground, with the force of how upset he had been.

And there had been no mistaking that look in her eyes - 

She had been _scared._

Scared of him, too.

Steven found himself falling to his knees, pounding on his head furiously as a wave of utter _grief_ overtook him. He felt nauseated, like his heart had dropped down into his gut, and his head was spinning with the ramifications of what he had done, with the repercussions yet to happen. Because this was more than just - a simple mistake he had made. This was something bigger, much bigger, so large it threatened to engulf him completely.

He had potentially scared off Connie - had almost _hurt_ her in his fury at himself. 

And now? What did that make Steven Universe, if _not_ what he had said?!

Now he was _crazy_ , was a _danger_ , was _messed up!_

He was - 

_\- he was a -_

_\- a -_

_No -_

“No, no, no,” he whispered to himself, as he felt himself light up bright pink once again, his skin vibrating with glow he could practically _hear,_ buzzing furiously as he felt a strange sort of pulling sensation within his gem - one that was far from familiar, from an every-day experience, but one that he could _never_ forget - that made his vision tilt and lurch to the side like a bad trip on a tilt-a-whirl but even _worse_ , more debilitating because - because this was a sensation that he knew, he knew it, he _knew -_

“No, no, _no -_ no, I can’t, not _again_ _\- NO -_ “

It gave another tug, _upward_ as if it were pulled from the point, buried deep within his gut - like a hook that was caught on him and trying to pull it straight through, up, and _out,_ and it would burst out of him, and - it was so _loud_ , everything, everything, _everything_ \- it was so loud, and he could feel the feeling rushing on him now, coming through him, ready to rip through.

He felt his back shudder, as he fisted his hands in his hair; he thought back to the nearly undetectable scars that laced up it currently from two hundred and forty-one days ago, and in sheer desperation he _pounded_ his forehead against the dirt of the forest floor, pounded it like a pillar in the white palace. _Thud, thud, thud, thud -_ this could not be happening, not here, not alone, he couldn’t do this again, not again, _he couldn’t - !! -_

_You’re a monster, Steven -_

But he just - he felt -

\- so - 

_\- bad_ -

And - it _hurt_ \-- 

  
  


\---

\--

-

_“It’s definitely a tricky thing, coming down from a panic attack. But it’s not impossible - you just need to make sure you break yourself out of the feeling. Ground yourself as much as possible in what’s real, in your surroundings.”_

_“Wait, what? Like, sit down on the floor, or…”_

_“Ha, no, Steven. Though that could help as well - no, you know that when you’re panicking, it’s like your mind runs away from you - oftentimes people disassociate as well in the moment, or feel like they’re becoming detached from reality, from their surroundings. That’s what grounding does, what mindfulness does. Would you like an example?”_

_“I mean, I guess… I’m not sure I follow.”_

_“Well, for example - an easy mindfulness technique is just saying out loud things you see. For example - the couch is beige, the rug over there is pink with white stripes, the floor is mid-pile and cream, the desk is wooden… you follow?”_

_“Uhm. Yeah, I guess… it seems kind of, you know. Silly?”_

_“It kind of is, yes, especially when you’re not in the moment - but what you’re doing is getting your mind away from the fear, breaking your own train of thought. Give it a try?”_

_“Er, sure. Uhm…. I’m wearing pants? Hey - don’t laugh!”_

_“Sorry, sorry!”_

_\--_

_\---_

“T-the… the ground is made of dirt,” he whispered to himself as he pressed his face against the collapsed earthen floor beneath him, and breathed in deep, stuttering. “It… it smells like dirt, and it’s cold! And it’s cold here, and there’s - there’s trees everywhere, and -”

He choked on a sob. Then another, let out a whine - as he felt his back give a predictive throbbing shudder -

“No, _no, no_ \- there’s, it’s dark out, and, and -” 

He threw his fist out from where it was clutching his head, scrambling furiously against the dirt. It was rough and hard underneath his fingers, hurt his nails as he dug, frantic in the motion of it. Then with both hands, throwing the dirt off behind him as he dug through the layers of the forest floor in panic, in blind desperation, in search for -

“- a-and _stones_ , there’s rocks here, they’re - they’re small, and cold, and they don’t talk like the Pebbles do! One, two, three -”

“And I’m cold, and - and I’m wearing a jacket, and it’s pink and - made of, uh, fabric?!” Sitting up, then, so quickly it made his head spin, but he rubbed his palms against his shoulders, his teeth chattering quietly as he continued in a sort of stage-whisper soliloquy to his audience of one. “Fabric, it’s - soft, but not really smooth, and it’s, it’s a warm material, and Dad gave it to me. Dad, at home, and he’s probably so worried, but -”

He took a deep breath; his face hurt from how hard he was scrunching it, from where he had shoved it against the ground. There was dirt on his face. It hurt. 

“He’s back at home, and he’d miss me, and - no, no, Steven, _calm._ Breathe in, one, two, three -” He hissed in a breath, held it until he couldn’t hold it any longer, hissed it out. “My feet are cold, I’m not wearing socks, my feet are _cold_ and it’s _cold_ and -” 

Breathed in, held it, breathed out. 

Breathed in, held it until his lungs burned in protest, let it out.

And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

\---

Steven stumbled back to the rest stop much, much later that night.

He was tired, completely exhausted - but so much more than that. It was like his _mind_ was a leaden weight ball rolling around in his skull, and when he leaned too far to the side it threw his weight to the side, caused him to stumble. He kept having to jump high into the air to check his location, was only able to barely see the lights of the highway over the hill - and it took more force than he had good mood available to activate. 

But eventually, the lights got closer, and he could see - the cluster of poles where the rest stop itself was, where various trucks had been parked, their drivers resting for the evening on their treks. And he could see then - the vending machines he had inspected earlier, the small restroom buildings standing alone against the wooded backdrops, the scattered picnic tables set about for people on long journeys to rest at.

And he saw Lion, sitting outside the Dondai, curled up in his own parking space. 

And he saw Connie -

 _No_ , he thought, pulling out his phone to check - he had miraculously been able to grab a sliver of wireless signal in the woods, had been able to send her a text message, hours ago - telling her to take Lion and to just, _go home_ , he was safe and he would be returning to Beach City. He checked his phone, and yes - that message had gone through, had been delivered. So why was she here?

(He knew why, of course he knew why. But that didn’t mean he - had to like it, had to accept her decision.) 

Solemnly, he walked over to the car; she was curled up on the passenger’s side seat, and we wondered for a moment how she had gotten into the car, but shrugged the thought off - like a simple locking mechanism would be enough to stop Connie Maheswaran from getting into a car. He held his hand out to rap against the window -

\- and froze for a moment, as the thought crossed his mind: _go back into the woods. You hurt her, you scared her, she hates you now -_

_\- you should leave forever -_

He shook his head, hard, and knocked on the window. There was no time for that sort of stupidity now - it was way too late. Connie needed to get home.

Steven repeated the knocking a few more times before it roused her from her sleep, but as soon as she noticed him standing there she jumped a bit, hand on the door handle, and she threw it open; he took a step back, towards Lion, as she stumbled out of the car, and then - froze.

“Hi,” he said. It sounded hollow.

“Steven - welcome back,” she said, her expression darkening as she took in the state of him - his face covered in tears, and dirt, and dirt on his knees and elbows and his hands - he must’ve looked horrible, ragged. It’s how he felt, anyways. “Are… are you okay?”

“No,” was his reply, and it stunned him for a second how quickly it came to him, how easily it rolled off his lips. “No, I’m really not. You?”

She shrugged, rubbed her eyes a bit. “Been better, to be honest,” was her tired reply. 

He just - “I’m sorry,” he said, biting his lip to - to keep himself grounded, to keep himself here as he apologized, mentally canting to himself the color of the stripes on the ground, the light of the cars driving by in the distance, the curl of her hair and the way it shone in the light. It hurt, was dangerous, but he _had_ to - “I - I messed up, Connie, I- ”

She held a hand out, a finger out, up against his lips. Shushed him, quietly, efficiently. 

“Not now,” she whispered to him, “soon - but not now.”

\---

So they went back to Beach City, leaving the Dondai in the Route 4 Rest Stop parking lot, just outside of State School, Keystone. 

They took Lion straight back to just outside the temple. Went inside the house, where the Gems were waiting. 

Steven didn’t stick around to listen, stumbled his way up the stairs - as Connie quietly explained to them what had happened in the past few hours, where he had been, where the car was, and whatever other hundreds of questions they probably had. 

He went up to his bed, collapsing on it face-first, not even caring in the slightest about the mess he was making, the dirt and grime transfering onto it easily. 

Breathed in deep, held it, exhaled.

He closed his eyes.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear we're finally done with day 241. hoo boy.


	17. day 245 (part one)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven - doesn't feel? Then he does, and feels - bad.
> 
> (cw: suicidal thoughts, bad thoughts in general)

Steven felt - numb? That was the best word for it, he figured. 

Numb, and tired in a way that was of course reminiscent of before, of the last time he had had such a bad time - bad episode, relapse, whatever you wanted to call it. The tiredness sapped all the strength from his limbs, made them feel like they were made - stones, boulders that he used to be able to smash but now would surely crush him, as everything in his life was crushing him, and he found that he just - could not move. 

Could not find the _will_ to move, was locked down essentially and he was going to lay in his bed, he was probably going to just lay there _forever_ and wither into nothingness, dissolve into ash or whatever it was that Gem/human hybrid boys turned into when they got too overwhelmed with sadness and the crushing weight of their present reality. He was going to spend the rest of his days in bed, and that was that.

He didn’t get out of bed the next day at all. Or the next. Or the next.

(Sometimes - he thought the ~~_d_ ~~ ~~-word~~ , too. Not in any sort of active sense, not even in the word itself, but it was there, chanting in the background, a disquieting murmur.)

It was just a sense of numbness, a sense of wrongness, a sense that he had finally, completely and utterly broken down once again. Only this time it was without the sort of fanfare his previous melt-down had brought, without all the drama and grandstanding and inter-galactic traveling and monstrous forms. This had been just - a stupid mistake, followed by another stupid mistake, and the dawning realization that he was far, _far_ from okay, despite everything he had been telling himself for months, now. Despite all his hard work and weeks upon weeks of therapy, and all the encouragement from everyone, all the kudos he had received for trying so, so hard - he had thrown it all into the trash.

And oh, Steven knew he was worrying them all with his behavior, with his melancholy - which was fine, because as much as he didn’t want anyone to worry about him, as much as he desperately tried to play off the need for them to think he was okay - he wasn’t okay, he _was_ in a worrying sort of state. Their concern this time was a thousand percent justified this time and he knew it and there was no sense in pretending otherwise at all, anymore, the gig was irrevocably up, once again. 

He thought to what Dr. A would say in this situation - she’d probably say that was okay, that they were worried. That he _deserved_ to have someone worry about him when he was sick like this, like it was - some sort of _good_ thing, and not the mortifying ordeal it was. 

He couldn’t quite work his mind around that, if he were being honest; it was just so _firmly_ cemented in his mind that it was a bad thing for others to worry about him, for his own well-being to - to what? Exist at all, to be a conscious thought on the mind of others? 

He was messed up. 

He was just a sad sack of sadness and was going to lay in bed until forever came around.

\---

That plan lasted for a few days.

But over time, he realized that it was, in fact, incredibly boring to wait around forever until - _something_ happened, he didn’t know what he was even waiting for, even. But his previous breakdown was still so fresh in his mind, his breakdown and the weeks of sadness and sapped lethargy that had overtaken him in the time immediately following, and he was just - suddenly not too keen on doing that, to such an extent as he had last time.

And - maybe it was because things _were_ different this time? He was making sure to take his medication still (even though it just seemed so pointless, but Pearl made sure to remind him of it every day at the same time, so he kinda had to lest he upset her any further), and - even when he was feeling as miserable as he was, he could hear it in his mind, too, a quiet whisper in a soft, calm voice- _these are thought distortions. These ideas aren’t you, they’re your mind going haywire. Think about it, work through it._

He tried mentally going through his thought worksheets, in the vaguest sense - tried stopping and thinking about things like evidence, and ratings, and - it kind of worked? But it was difficult, like he was barely keeping his head above water by doing so, and so he just. Kept treading, kept kicking. 

At least he wasn’t drowning anymore, and that - that surely was something, right?

\---

It came up when Greg brought back the Dondai a few days later.

(Steven had wanted to go himself to retrieve it from Keystone, but it had been a unanimously solid ‘no’ from everyone else involved in his life, and oh - did _that_ ever hurt. Not that it didn’t make sense, their lack of trust of him after he had acted up to such an _i ~~nsane~~_ degree - not that it wasn’t a thousand percent justified, but still - he had hoped to have the chance to maybe work on fixing his problems for himself, cleaning up after himself this time, instead of having to inconvenience anyone more than they already had been.)

His dad has stopped in to the house to drop off the keys, giving him a nervous sort of wave as Steven came down the stairs (still in his pajamas - even though the sun was casting warmer and warmer shades through the windows, showing that it was later on in the day. Another failure of his, to add to the growing list, but at the same time - at least he had gotten out of bed, was downstairs for once). 

“Hey, Schtu-ball,” Greg had said to him as he spotted his son’s descent, and he gave him what he was surely thinking was a convincing smile. “How, uh, are you feelin?”

Steven shrugged, slowing as he reached the bottom step - he opened his mouth and coughed a bit, his vocal chords stiff from disuse over the past few days. Was the last person he spoke to really Connie, back at the rest stop? _Stars_. “I’m, uh. Okay?” Shrug again. He thought about smiling, to reassure him -

And the muscles in his face protested, screamed at the unfamiliar movement; had it really become so strange to him as of late? He dropped the attempt of a grin almost immediately, because it wasn’t about to fool anyone, anyways, and certainly not Greg Universe. 

His dad just gave him a look (one of sadness and pity and _stupid boy can’t even smile anymore, he’s so broken)_ , and wordlessly held out his arms towards Steven, as he took a step towards his son - and then another, and at the lack of responding movement from Steven, took it upon himself to wrap them around the boy in a tight embrace.

And _that_ got a response from Steven - got him to jolt slightly, wincing, _flinchingly_ almost (and stars, did he hate that) - but then he allowed himself to sink into the comfort, the contact, and allow himself to be held. For Greg’s sake, really. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into his dad’s shirt, placing his face against Greg’s shoulder. His eyes remained dry; he doubted there was any moisture left in his reserves at all for him to actually cry tears, even with the painful knot in his chest.

“It’s - it’s ok, Steven,” his dad replied, with a stirring wobble to his tone, “it’s going to be okay.” His hand came up and found itself in his son’s thick curls, and he paused for a moment, before - 

“ I, uh, I already called Dr. Akiyama, by the way? I mentioned - the, uh, you know - _situation_ to her? She said she can see you tomorrow morning, actually. If that’s okay with you!”

And - to be honest, Steven didn’t immediately know if it _was_ okay, when posed with the idea, the question. Didn’t quite know if he wanted to acknowledge the sort of stinging rejection that that brought in him, the immediate rising urge to just - scream in frustration, because of _course_ his dad didn’t want to deal with him, wanted to push him onto his doctor as soon as possible, because he was _crazy_ and - and needed a professional, a serious _doctor_ to look at him because he was beyond regular help now, and -

But instead he just nodded, silently. Because as much as it stung, it was completely true, too. 

\---

So the next day, bright and early, he found himself sitting in the passenger’s side of the van, as they made their way out to Dr. A’s office. 

It was weird, for sure, to have his dad with him once again for therapy - at least, as far as driving to therapy went; it had been a built-in part of the sort of ritual of it all, really, those minutes by himself, just listening to music or nothing at all, sometimes, and just. Gearing himself up for what he was going to do, what he was going to say and all. But with Greg in the driver’s seat, he found himself almost hyper-aware of his surroundings, of the drive, of the quiet tension that lay in the air between the two of them. 

And he wanted to say - _something_ , but he didn’t know what, didn’t know where he would even start. Because as much as he had tried in the past few months to get better, to be a better person and all - the relationship between the two of them had become strained, had _been_ strained back in that road trip of theirs right before The Meltdown happened.

It felt like he was operating on a different wavelength, lately, and not for a lack of trying on Greg’s part, either - this was all Steven, all his own unique brand of weirdness and not being able to relate properly to _humans_. 

(At least, that’s what he found himself thinking.) 

“Sooo,” Greg said as they sat at a light, waiting to make a left turn. “How do you like Dr. Akiyama so far?”

The question was a bit late to be asked, considering he had been seeing her for over half a year by this point, but Steven answered anyways. “She’s - she’s nice. Has a lot of worksheets.” He shrugged his shoulders, gaze on the houses they were driving by, on the regular normal _humans_ living their regular normal _human_ lives, and swallowed. “I, uh. Think she’s the reason I, you know… made it through the winter and all.”

Greg winced. “Schtu-ball, _you_ made it through - you alone and your hard work! Besides, I- “ And he paused, grimacing openly.

“What?” Steven asked, glancing over to catch the expression on his dad’s face before quickly averting his gaze back out - as if he had caught sight of something he wasn’t supposed to see. “Besides what?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he murmured, “I just - didn’t know it got that rough for you. I’m sorry.” 

He didn’t know how to respond to that. So he didn’t, and they spent the rest of the ride in silence.

\---

Dr. A’s office didn’t usually take patients on the weekend, he knew; the building loomed with a quiet sort of foreboding air due to that, and the parking lot was near empty as they pulled up. 

“Do you want me to come inside, or…” Greg asked quietly as he turned into a spot near the entrance. 

Steven shrugged once again, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the door the second their tires stopped. “I mean, it’d be kind of boring to just wait - you don’t have to.” He sighed, gave his dad a - a look, the ghost of a smile. “I’ll call when I’m done?”

Greg stared at him for a moment before nodding, seemingly - what, disappointed? “Okay,” he responded quietly. “I’ll, uh. Go... find someplace around here, then.”

And for a moment, he felt that same _frustration_ rising in his gut again, because - what, did he really _want_ to come along? Did he want to sit in and hear about just how messed up his stupid alien son was, and worry even more about him? He was - Steven was doing his best to just, _protect_ everyone, even his dad, and just. 

No one seemed to _get_ it. 

He slammed the passenger’s side door shut (a little harder than he meant to), and wordlessly stormed inside.

\---

Steven had honestly been expecting - he didn’t know. He had expected the elevator door to open up and for him to immediately be lambasted, yelled at down the hall by his therapist, because of _course_ he had done something so colossally _dumb_ as running away, as yelling at Connie and disappearing into the woods of Keystone alone for hours in the middle of the night. He assumed that he would be scolded immediately, told off for being reckless and rash once again, and would be - he didn’t know, locked up and sent away. 

It was worse. Because Dr. A gave him the same patient smile she always did, took him back to her office, and then - asked him to _explain_ what had happened.

“Dad didn’t _tell_ you?” Steven asked, incredulous.

She shook her head. “Not in so many details, no - just that you were having a bit of a crisis, and would really benefit from an emergency session.” Her notepad wasn’t with her today, not right now, and her office was - almost disturbingly tidy. It gave him the impression that he wasn’t supposed to be here, not at all. “I’d like to hear what happened from you, though, regardless.”

He sighed - harsh, loud. _Frustrated_ . “I just - what’s the point in this, then! It happened, it’s - it’s fine, I don’t - I made a _mistake,_ okay? Just got carried away, and - it’s fine, I fixed it!”

 _Well, no, everyone else fixed it for you,_ his mind whispered. _You messed up and everyone had to pick up the pieces, once again_.

She nodded along, though. “That’s good, that you feel it was fixed. But let’s go over what happened, so we can see if we can prevent it from happening again?” 

“It - I just -” 

He felt his heart thudding in his chest, loud like a drum. He found his eyes looking away from hers, at the wall, at the plants, at the _door_ \- the urge to flee rising, fluttering up.

“I’d rather not?” he whispered.

“Steven,” she said, and her voice was gentle, but firm too - how it got when he got avoidant like this. “Your father said that you were potentially in danger, the other day. Do you agree with that assessment?”

His mouth hung open for a moment in shock, in a growing sense of - betrayal? “I - _no!_ I just, I -”

 _The throbbing, pulling feeling through his back. The electric feel of_ pink _coursing along his skin like a current._

“I - I might have -”

_The feeling of dirt against his face, against his forehead - against his hands as he dug, scrambled fervently -_

He gulped. 

Stared at her, eyes wide.

She watched him back, her face carefully schooled in an expression of neutrality. A moment of silence passed between them, thick in the air. “You might have…?,” she set down carefully in the space between them. 

_You’re a monster, Steven -_

“I…” he whispered, his voice wobbling. Like a tightrope walker, unsteady and trying their best to keep balance, with the chasm below, welcoming, wanting - “I might’ve... almost, uh. Lost it, again.”

“How so?”

He stared at her. Looked down at the ground. 

\---

And - slowly, painfully - he explained it, to her.

\---

It was a small miracle of miracles that he wasn’t pink by the end of his recap. 

(Well, _alien_ pink, anyways - his face was surely lit up from the waterworks he ended up putting on display, almost too easily.) 

“I just - I felt so, so - _inhuman_ ,” he whispered, a thick sniffle breaking up his train of thought. Dr. A passed him another tissue; they had surely gone through half the box by this point, a small pile of used one growing in the trash can. 

“Do you often feel that way? Inhuman?” Dr. A asked quietly; she had scooted her chair to be much closer to him than she normally sat, in a sort of distanced-yet-comforting way. 

He shook his head reflexively, before changing it to a nod. “A lot, yeah,” Steven mumbled. Dabbed at his face. “I mean, I’m technically - _not_ , entirely, but it’s just - when everything gets so _loud_ , and - I think that’s part of why I. Had my breakdown, maybe? I’m, leading up to it and all -” He sighed, biting his lip for a moment. 

~~_You’re the only one in the Universe who knows what you’re going through._ ~~

“I’m not entirely a Gem, either, but not entirely a human, and I’m just - caught in the middle, with no one to relate to? And it doesn’t help at all either, when - when people are constantly telling me now - that I’m not _me,_ not acting like _myself_ . I know who I am, I know I’m Steven Universe, but - who _is_ that, nowadays? Just some weird, angry, half-alien _crazy_ kid?” 

“You’re not crazy, Steven,” Dr. A said.

He scoffed, folding his arms in a huff across his chest. “That’s - that’s not what Connie said.”

“What did she say, exactly?” Patient as always.

“That I was - was _acting_ crazy.”

Dr. A hummed a bit in response, looking down at her hands as she thought for a moment. “You know, you _had_ just told her that you drove six hours west without telling anyone. She probably thought you weren’t acting like - oh.” 

“Exactly!” He huffed again. “Who am I _supposed_ to be acting like? Besides, people run away all the time, it’s not - not that unusual, right?”

She gave him a quiet look. “I can’t speak for Connie’s response, Steven; you should probably look to hear that from her directly. But she sounds like, especially if she came all the way out to see you, that she was probably _very_ concerned for you?”

“I don’t - I didn’t _need_ her concern, though! She shouldn’t have been - she shouldn’t worry about me!” He blinked his eyes hard.

“Steven, listen to me - your friends care about you, Connie included. Sometimes, when we’re in crisis, we can’t see it clearly for ourselves, but others can - and the mind, the crisis itself tricks us into doubting them, because it wants to further itself. Your depression, your anxiety, it _wants_ you to break down, to run away - it’s your brain misfiring, trying to fight against a threat that it’s making itself. Connie probably could see that, Steven, and she was concerned - because she cares for you a lot. Yes?”

Dumbfounded, he nodded. 

“Try to remember, Steven, there’s no exact science, no exact guide book on any of this - not for you, but also not for them. And before you think it - it’s not just because you’re part Gem-” She gave him a knowing look, cutting off his protest before it escaped his lips. “ Your problem is a very human one, Steven, and you’re not alone in it - but it’s tricky. You’re going to make missteps, Connie might say the wrong thing. Your dad might not know what to say - but they’re trying, just as you’re trying. Cutting them off, running away from everyone when you feel overwhelmed is what your crisis _wants_ you to do - you need to lean into their support.”

“But,” Steven said, his voice a near whine. “I just - I don’t want to hurt them, I don’t want to worry them!”

Dr. A sighed. “Steven, I’m going to be frank. If Connie got overwhelmed, and ran away from home, and didn’t tell you anything about her plans or anything - what would you do?”

“I’d - _oh._ ”

“You’d want to make sure she was okay, right? At the very least, you’d be worried. Why isn’t it allowed, then, for Connie, for everyone to worry about you?”

And he - blinked. 

Because the answer came to him almost immediately, lept up into his throat, and escaped his lips before he could even think about it, before he could stop it and hold it back - the truth spilled out of him, thick like blood on the floor. 

“Because I’m still a monster,” he whispered.

\---

He didn’t call his dad when his session ended, but as he headed out the doors (an embarrassingly long time after he should’ve left), he wasn’t surprised to see the van sitting in the same spot. 

“Hey, son,” Greg said to him as he opened the car door, eyes red and downcast. “Everything ok?”

And Steven - reached into his bag, pulled out a handful of papers, and handed them over to his dad, wordlessly.

Greg took them into his hands, flipping the stack over to read the title - “‘ _Parenting a Child With Trauma-’_ Steven, what is this?”

“For you,” he said quietly, his throat scratchy from his lengthy crying session inside his therapist’s office. “Dr. A said… it might help, with, uhm. Me, in general? Just so you, you know. Have some help.” He sniffed. “I’m sorry, by the way. For being… not great, lately.”

His dad nodded, looked down at the papers before folding them, sticking them down between the seats. “I’ll read it as soon as we get home, Schtu-ball - and hey, it’s okay! You don’t need to apologize!” 

“But I _want_ to,” he insisted, rubbing his face as he turned to look at his dad. “I’ve been a - a jerk, to you and the Gems and Connie and - I’ve been pushing you all away! Because I’m scared that you all care too much about me, and that you’re all going to get hurt one way or another - not just because of Gem stuff, but because of _me_!”

“Steven -” He reached a hand out, held it in the air for a moment before gently setting it on his son’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We trust you, okay - and besides, you’ve always been there for everyone! Why can’t we be there for you in turn?”

The thought, the intrusive answer crossed his mind once again - this time, though, he just. Shrugged, his eyes watering up again. 

“I guess I don’t feel I deserve it,” he whispered. “After everything I’ve put everyone through, after… after the way I’ve behaved, treated everyone - I just.”

“I don’t feel I deserve it.”

\---

Steven didn’t know what he expected, in response to that. But it wasn’t for Greg to silently turn the car off, to sit there for a moment - before turning to him with an uncharacteristically stern expression. 

“Don’t _say_ that,” Greg scolded. “Don’t - don’t say that! You _absolutely,_ out of anyone in the entire Universe, deserve _love_ , and _care_ , and for people to worry about you when you’re not feeling great, and for _anyone_ and _everyone_ to be there for you!” And he then - reached down between the seats of the van, where he had placed the thick stack of papers, and silently began _reading._

Steven - just blinked. “Dad?”

“Is this what this is? Do you feel like you don’t _deserve_ care because of, of _trauma_ ? Then I’m going to - to _read_ about it, then!” His eyes were watering, as they frantically scanned the page, almost comical in his sudden desire to solve the puzzle before him. “I’m going to, to learn about this, and how to help you, and - and say the right thing, and I’ll pay attention better!” 

And he looked up, serious and stern, even with tears beginning to roll. “Because you’re my son, damn it, and I love you, and I’m - _I’m not going to lose you to this._ ”

\---

The two of them cried a lot after that.

(It was kind of embarrassing - his dad was kind of loud, when he got going.)

And then - they laughed? After they finished wiping their faces, and hugging it out, and - Steven convinced Greg to not read the entire eight-page packet right then and there - they laughed a little. 

And then they went back home, because Steven - wasn’t done just yet. 

He had another conversation he had to have. 

\---

_Ring…. Ring…. Ring…_

“Hey? Steven?”

“H-hey Connie.” He coughed awkwardly. “Is now a good time to chat?”

“Of course it is - do you want me to come over, even? I could be there in a minute, if Lion shows up, or I can take the bus -”

“No, no,” he murmured, looking down at the (finally returned) car keys in his hand. “I’ll come get you - dad gave me back the Dondai, finally. Is that ok? I could be there in like, twenty.”

“Sure, absolutely - I’ll see you then.”

_Click._

_\---_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay in getting this one out! i hope the length makes up for the wait a bit, ahaha.
> 
> greg's worksheet is a real thing - chance it here: https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/child-trauma.pdf 
> 
> also, please note the chapter count! we have an end in sight!! ...note that i reserve the right to change it at any time if like, 20 more chapters come to me LMAO.


	18. day 245 (part two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven gets a talking to, times two.

The worst part about all of this, Steven thought to himself, was just how… _public_ it all was?

He didn’t know if it was just dumb luck, or - or what, but it seemed like every time he had a sort of breakdown, large or small (or catastrophically noticeable in the way literally transforming into a giant and smashing your face into a cliffside could only be), everyone around him knew about it. Because of course he couldn’t just have a meltdown in quiet, do something in such a way that no one else really had to worry - where they didn’t have to be constantly concerned about the mental state of Steven _Crazy_ Universe.

Because there was no denying that everyone was concerned about him, he didn’t even need them to tell him about it - didn’t even need to see it on their faces, in their eyes. It was going to be there, the ever-present pity, and he was tired of it - not for his own sake, but for theirs. He knew he was becoming a burden (even if no one had _said_ anything like that to him), he knew that they wished he would just get over himself. 

He wished there was a way that he could just be a smaller person, somehow. Someone less noticeable, someone with less connections than he had. That he could run away into the woods for hours and not have anyone care - no phone calls, no texts, no tears.

He wished, he wished, he wished. 

\---

That thought was definitely reoccurring once, and it struck him once again, as he pulled up to Connie’s house in the Dondai - and saw her mom waiting outside for him, sitting on the steps.

 _Oh._

Yeah, there was no way she didn’t know about - yeah. _Shoot_. 

In a moment of weakness, he considered briefly continuing down the street, pretending like he was just - what, in the neighborhood, outside of Beach City? For no reason? Taking a coward’s way out of it all - but then he caught her eyes, her deep gaze penetrating into his mind like a viper’s, and he _knew_ there was no way around this confrontation, this conversation she had scheduled for him - without him even knowing knowing.

He really should’ve, though. Should’ve seen this coming from miles away.

So with a sigh, he pulled into the driveway, turned off the car, and stepped out. “Hi, Dr. Maheswaran,” he murmured, softly closing the door of the old car behind him.

(And it was literally days later, and he had taken at least one shower between then and now, but he still felt self-conscious of his appearance, of how disheveled he looked, of the grease in his hair and of having dirt on his face, on his knees - under his nails - )

“Hello, Steven,” the older woman responded, patting the step next to her as he approached. “Let’s have a talk.” 

There was no room for debate in her tone - no question mark to be found anywhere in the vicinity. Steven swallowed nervously, and nodded; he sat down at the indicated spot, and found himself turning his gaze to the ground, finding himself - embarrassed, horrifically so. 

“Connie let it slip to us that she took a little trip out west to Keystone the other evening, while Doug and I were both at work,” she said, her tone firm but oddly tempered as well - if she was angry (and there was little doubt in his mind that she must be, how could she not be), she wasn’t showing it. She kept her eyes off of him, looking at the row of houses opposite theirs. “Something about her hopping on your Lion and waiting at a rest stop, until late at night. Do you know why she was out there, Steven?”

He nodded silently, as the feeling of mortification in him grew.

Not waiting for a response, she continued. “She said it had something to do with you, as it usually does - but she wouldn’t say anything more than that, you know. She said it was private, that it was - something only you should tell us, not her. So I thought I’d come and ask you directly.”

The doctor turned to look at him, and her expression was - not one of pity, thank the stars, but one of concern nonetheless. Like he were a puzzle that she had stumbled upon suddenly, one her daughter had gifted her and she was determined to solve. “Steven, what’s going on?”

And he - his mouth flapped uselessly, wordlessly for a moment, as he struggled to find a way to word his experiences in a way that would cause the least amount of damage, that wouldn’t cause the doctor to immediately bar him from seeing Connie for the rest of his known life.

“Oh, you know,” he mumbled quietly, hoarsely, blinking heavily at the ground. “I, uh- had a rough night, the other night, and - I’m really sorry, I didn’t - want Connie to come out or wait or anything- “

“Rough night how?” she pushed. “What do you mean?”

“I - I -” he stammered. This was the _worst_. He felt his eyes burn, prickle in the corners, and he hurried through the words, suddenly desperate to explain, to get them out of him, to stop this all from happening- “I just, made a - a rash decision, and ran off and Connie had to - to snap me out of it, and - please don’t be mad at her, it’s - it’s all my fault, okay -”

“Steven, Steven, calm down,” Priyanka said to him then, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. “Connie’s not in trouble - Doug’s talking to her about it now, but. It’s, uh. Good that she was able to be there for you? Not that she was out so late, but, circumstances being what they were...” She paused, patting him on the back lightly. “It’s just that, we’re concerned about _you_ , too, you know?”

He didn’t know what to say to that - if he should be grateful or terrified for them. 

He ended up just shrugging.

“Are you still seeing Doctor Akiyama?” she said, then, after a moment of silence.

“I-i am,” he whispered. “Once a week. I saw her earlier today.” 

“Good. She’s a very talented psychologist - we wanted her originally at the hospital, you know, but private practice snatched her away. Ah well.” She sighed a little, standing up on the steps. Crossed her arms across her front. “Do you think she’s helping?”

He blinked, hard. Closed his eyes. Opened his mouth and - closed it again. 

Stars. What did he even _say_ to that? Sure, she had been helping, had helped him make it through the worst of it, but he was at the bottom of sliding down a peak, and it felt like the top of it was miles and miles above him, and now he had all these tools and ways to get out of it but he still had to _climb_ and fight his way out and he was just so, so tired, and he kept making stupid mistakes like running away and yelling at people and it was - _ah_ -

\- turns out his eyes weren’t as dry of tears as he had thought. 

\---

And Connie’s mom had just kind of - stood there for a moment, before sitting down next to him again, rubbing his back gently as he sobbed stupidly into his hands. It was awkward as it could possibly, humanly be. And he had _babbled_ too, then, near nonsense about how he was sorry, and how ashamed he was, and how Connie should just find someone better to be friends with -

“That’s Connie’s decision,” she had said to him, “not mine, and frankly not really yours, either. Besides, even if we told her something like that, you _know_ she wouldn’t listen, headstrong as she is.”

And he laughed a little at that, because it was true, but - 

The door behind them creaked open, then. “Mom…?” He heard Connie’s voice, felt Priyanka turn to look back at her daughter. “Is everything alright?”

“Steven’s… upset,” he heard her say hesitantly, and his face burned with shame. “Would you like to talk to him?”

“Wha - yes!” He heard her footsteps on the concrete, as her mother stood up, the two of them essentially switching spots; Connie’s worried face entered his peripheral vision, as she sat down next to him, placing a hand on his arm. “I’ve got it, mom,” she whispered, “dad’s wanting to talk to you inside.” 

“Alright, then,” she said, and she was - clearly off-guard at how the situation had clearly and quickly spiraled out of her control. “We’ll be inside, then, Connie. Steven.” There was a pause, and then - the door opened, and closed once more.

And Connie shook her head, rolled her eyes. 

“Sorry about that,” she said in an overly casual tone, giving him a weak smile. “Didn’t know they planned on - doing an _interrogation_ of us both, but I probably should’ve seen it coming. What’d she say to you?” 

“N-nothing much. Just asked me how, uh, Dr. A’s doing, and. If she -” He sniffled, wiping his face with his jacket sleeve. “- if she was, uh. Helping, at all. I dunno why I started, you know, crying like this suddenly...”

Connie shrugged at him, pressed her side against his. “Must be the pressure - hate to admit it, but when she turns that on? Hoo boy - I’ve cried a few times.” 

And he wanted to shake his head, to refute her, because - no, Connie’s mom _hadn’t_ done that at all, hadn’t threatened him or anything like that. She had just asked him a simple question and he had crumbled completely, his horribly weak facade dissolving like it were made of dry sand in a stiff breeze. But to do so would be admitting to her once again just how - how _fragile_ he was lately, would be voicing it out loud and making it so once again, and -

\- and really, he didn’t need to undercut Connie’s intelligence like that. Because she definitely already knew

So he just - leaned back against her, gave her a weak chuckle. “It- it was fine,” he whispered. “Nice, I think.”

“Really,” she droned. 

He sniffled once again. Leaned his head on her shoulder. “Really.”

\---

They sat like that for a few more minutes, quietly watching the lights around them dim as the sun headed through its daily course - before Steven’s neck started to get a bit stiff. 

“Do you wanna go up to my room?” Connie said, as he rolled his head around a bit, trying to get the kink out, “I think we’re good with the whole permission thing, since - you know. Mom’s talked to you and all.”

He chuckled softly. “What, not in the mood to illegally make out with this soggy stud-muffin?” he said softly.

She laughed as she stood up, stretching a bit herself. “Oh, you know, _always_ \- but I figured you might want to just chit chat for a bit instead. Especially about, uh. The other night.”

The mirth sapped immediately from his face - ah, right. With their humor, he had almost forgotten about messing up so badly. He nodded somberly. 

And so they headed up towards Connie’s room. Steven caught a glimpse of Priyanka and Doug in the kitchen as they headed up the stairs, as Connie yelled loudly ‘we’re just going to talk!’ to them - and he tried to instantly forget seeing the look on their faces (Doug’s especially) as they caught a look at his red face, at his stupid tears, because - 

\---

Connie shut the door most of the way, leaving it open just a crack (the expected norm with them hanging out at her house), as Steven found himself standing there awkwardly, not sure exactly where he was supposed to sit. He went for the chair positioned at her desk, grabbing onto the green cushion and spinning it around slowly, unsure - but Connie shook her head at him, giving him a thumbed gesture upwards towards her lofted bed. 

“Nuh-uh, Steven,” she said authoritatively, echoing her mom’s tone in her voice eerily, “if we’re gonna chat, it’s going to be comfy _and_ casual. Get your butt up there.” 

“Ha, sure,” he replied, grabbing the edge of the bed and lifting himself up via floating to sit cross-legged on the comforter. Connie rolled her eyes at the display (as she usually did), and scaled the ladder with the expertise of someone who had gone up and down it many many times, clambering onto the bed. She grabbed one of the many pillows she had stashed up here (more than any one person surely needed, but it made the lofted bed incredibly cozy, so he wasn’t one to complain) and held it to her front, letting out a long sigh as she leaned back against another set of cushions. 

“So,” she said. 

“So,” he echoed. “Should I start apologizing now?”

Connie closed her eyes, quiet against the pillows. “If you want,” she said softly. “I’m not gonna take that away from you, if you want to say you’re sorry, but know that I’ve forgiven you already, okay? And - “ 

She paused, pursed her lips together briefly. “Well, it wouldn’t be true to say I _wasn’t_ angry at you, because - I was, definitely, when you said you had ran away and all? And I'm sorry, by the way, for - for my choice of words, then. But I mean… oh, I don’t know.”

“No, I get it,” Steven murmured in reply, looking down at his crossed bare feet on her bed, picking idly at a frayed spot near where his jeans were cuffed. “It was - you being mad at me, it makes sense. Made sense back then, makes sense now.”

“I’m not mad at you now, though,” Connie reminded him.

Steven huffed, the air coming out harsher than a sigh. “Maybe you should be,” he murmured. “I’m certainly mad at myself for it, for - for _everything_.” 

Connie opened her dark eyes, then, looked at him carefully from where she was laying. “I don’t think that’s doing you any favors, tho,” she said, motioning with her hand for him to come lay down next to her; he complied silently, though still keeping a foot or so of distance. “Being angry - you were clearly having some - some problems, right? Even though you didn’t realize it then, when you got into the car and started driving - it’s like, you were trying to escape from them then, right?”

He blinked. “Ok, I knew you were smart, but - wow?”

She laughed dryly, lightly slapping a hand against his arm. “Shush, you. I mean it - think about it.”

Steven did, then - about how bad the winter had really been for him, about all the hard conversations with Dr. A and with Connie, and all the avoided conversations with his Dad and the Gems, and feeling like he just wanted to sleep in forever, and just how _irritable_ he had become. He thought about the five ‘happy’ lamps he had bought over the shorter months, the increased dosages of his medications (and the side-effects, and the fogginess, and the nausea), the journal pages that rapidly became sprawling testaments to his lack of - what, sanity? Humanity? 

He thought about that, reflected on it, and thought then of - of the joy he had felt when he had thought about up and bailing, about leaving all of that behind him and going somewhere else where no one knew him, where he didn’t even _have_ to be Steven Universe - where he could be just - a _human._ It would’ve been a fresh start, an erasing and redoing of himself. A so-called ‘get out of jail free’ card for the cage of himself ( ~~of being a monster~~ ) he had become trapped in.

It would’ve been a cop-out. 

He didn’t realize he had started tearing up again until he looked down, saw Connie’s arm over his chest - her face closer to his than it had been a moment ago. “You ok?” she whispered.

“I - I think so, maybe,” he whispered back, sniffling a bit. “I think I just. Got fed up with being me? After so many months of trying to get better, and then…”

“Suddenly, you weren’t?” Connie offered; he nodded. “But Steven, you - you _are_ getting better, trust me! It’s just, none of this stuff is - is linear, okay? Do you think I never had any anxiety after talking to my therapist, for literal _years_? No, silly, but it got easier to deal with, to handle it - that’s what you’ve gotta look for.” 

She scooted forward a bit more, folding her arms across his chest and leaning her head on them. “It’s like - when you learned how to ride a bike, you fell off a bunch, right? But even as you fell off, it was easier to get back on then, because - you had gotten used to falling, and you knew how to fall better, and it just - didn’t hurt as much.” She chuckled quietly, embarrassed a bit clearly by the dusting on her cheeks. “At least, that’s how it went for me, I don’t know about you…” 

“No, that’s about right,” he sighed. “And I mean - I guess that’s true? I -”

Steven paused.

She drummed her fingers against his shirt. “You…?”

“When I - when I ran off into the woods,” he said, hesitantly, closing his eyes and focusing on the weight of her leaning against him. “I, I came really close to - to relapsing? To turning back into a, you know.” 

“But?”

“But - I mean, I turned pink and had to focus on the ground and dirt and, and cried a lot, and probably sounded ridiculous out loud, but - but I _didn’t_ transform into a monster. This time.” 

“That’s - that’s really _good_ , Steven. That you were able to get out of it on your own! ”

“But I came close,” he lamented. “And I yelled at you, and -” 

“And so you fell of your bike a little,” she interrupted. “But you learned how to fall, right? And you kept going, and got back on, and now look at you - actually _talking_ about it.” Connie sighed a bit. “Sorry if that sounded, er, condescending.”

“No, it’s true,” Steven responded, “I - I still don’t want you to worry about me, or anything like that, but - I guess I’ve learned that you all are going to anyways?”

She reached out, ruffled a hand through his hair; he leaned into the touch lightly. “If you keep doing stuff like that, yeah.”

“I’m really sorry,” he whispered, almost inaudible. Connie leaned up a bit, then, and he felt her lips lightly on his cheeks, dusting against where his tears had trailed earlier that evening. 

“Just don’t stop trying, ok? It’s gonna get easier, with each step - even when you take a step or two back.“

 _Stars_ , he loved her.

“Just make sure you take some forwards, too.” 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO HOO SORRY ABOUT THE WAIT ON THIS ONE GUYS. as always thank you all x 500 for your comments and feedback and kudos and whatnot. 
> 
> i love priyanka... shes like. my favorite SU adult i think. has good singing voice for sure lmao.


	19. day 251

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven considers the past, future, and present.

And then, surprisingly enough to Steven - the world continued to turn. 

He didn’t know why that came as such a shock to him as it did - perhaps, he figured, because the last time he had had such a meltdown, it had felt like the earth had come to a screeching, suddenly jarring halt? He expected the rug pulled out from him, because Last Time, he had _transformed_ into the horrible, monstrous manifestation of his pain, and then for months on end he had existed in a state of almost - nonexistence. He had had to come _crawling_ back into the reality of the world he had lived in, had to fight for the right to stand on his own two feet -

Except that when he _did_ crawl back, he was marked, scarred by the experience of his breakdown (literally and figuratively, and he didn’t even want to think about the literal scars, coursing up and down his back like a branded note to the world), and then - had to spend months studying and learning: how to re-mesh with the world he had fallen out of, as well.

(Of course, when he had mentioned this all to Dr. A, she had pointed out that, most likely, this was a thing that only he had noticed, that no one else had mentioned anything of the sort to him at all, and it was all just a figment of his imagination. But he had brushed her aside, because - well, of course no one was going to _mention_ it to him! That would be rude, and - they wouldn’t do that, no matter how true it was or not.)

There was a clear delineation (to him, at least) between the time of Steven before his extremely public breakdown, and the time of Steven afterwards - who was the Steven in recovery and who went to therapy once a week, every week, and took medication for his broken brain.

And never shall the twain meet. There was no way for him to _really_ go back, after all, no way for him to erase what had happened - despite how much he really, really wished he could. 

\---

Anyways, with all that said and done - it had made sense to him that the same would happen this time; he expected the consequences to be proportional, as they had been last time (even though his mistake was smaller). And it was with a great deal of trepidation that he experienced every day, waiting for the extent of his new slide downhill to be revealed. Because - there was no denying it, that what he had done was truly a mistake, that he had hurt people once again. 

And yet, with every day that passed, it was as if… nothing had really happened?

And it was the _worst_. 

He had talked to Connie, apologized to her and his dad and everyone and then - everyone just seemed content to move on. To let bygones be bygones and to just, forgive and forget.

And it was - _weird,_ too weird, and left him feeling a step out of place, out of line with everyone’s expectations; he found himself feeling borderline paranoid, even, because surely this was just as bad serious as the previous time, right? And the fact that they weren’t letting him know even how badly he had messed up was just - even worse, because the previous time they had shown him in their body language, in their hushed whispers around corners and in their cautious, cautious behavior around him (as if he were delicate, spun glass being handled by the like of a hard, huge Diamond). But this time there was nothing of the sort, and he found himself searching, looking for an excuse to latch onto.

There was no way he wasn’t going to get punished for this, right? There was no logical way that he was going to get off free, that his fraudulent behavior was going to escape the judgement of the world for a second time….

He just had to wait for it. Tense, and coiled like a snake poised to strike at all times - he had to wait. 

\---

So, it was with a grand, almost hysterical amount of relief that Monday rolled around, and he went to go talk to his doctor. Barely gave her time to settle down before he launched into explaining the development of the situation, on how - _wrong_ everyone was acting, and how wrong it was that nothing had come to head yet -

“It’s just - it’s frustrating, you know?” Steven huffed harshly, crossing his arms. “I feel like there’s something major I’m missing, because it all just - doesn’t make _sense_!”

“What about it doesn’t make sense?” Dr. A said softly.

“That they’re not mad at me - that they’re not, I don’t know, reacting at all?” He sighed again, chewing on the corner of his lip a bit. “I clearly did something wrong, something that they were all _so_ concerned about, and then - nothing at all. I don’t get it!”

“What don’t you get about it?” she replied; he couldn’t help but give her a quick glare, before looking down. He knew it was a part of therapy, sure, leading his own thoughts and prodding at them, but he sure did hate that technique - it felt condescending in a big way.

“Don’t make me spell it out,” he murmured, his anger seeping into his tone a little, like a bleeding ink on her page. “I don’t get - ugh, why they’re _not_ mad at me? They should be - er, I guess I _feel_ like they should be, since this is, you know, another big mistake of mine and all, and I put Connie in danger, and was just - stupid, and irresponsible, and -”

“Steven, Steven,” Dr. A said, tapping her pencil against the side of her clipboard (a little cue to snap him out of his start of a spiral). “What you did wasn’t… the best decision, no. Taking the car was dangerous enough on its own, and the escapade in the woods, those were mistakes, yes. But that’s that - they were mistakes, not anything intentionally _bad_ that you set out to do.”

“But they were _horrible_ !” he spat back, practically hissed. “I’m not - I’m a _horrible_ person, we’ve established this already -”

“You might’ve established it within yourself, but that doesn’t mean it’s a fact, Steven,” was her cool reply. “In fact, I bet many people would disagree with you. People who have known you your whole life and all.”

“What does that matter?! I’m not - I’m not even-” 

He paused, bit his lip. Looked down at his knees. 

“You’re not what?”

“I’m not - the same person I was back then, you know,” Steven whispered, his words quickly spilling off his tongue. “I’m not the same person I was as a kid, so - so it doesn’t matter what people who’ve known me for a long time would say, because it’s just - not the same.”

There was a moment of quiet; he trained his eyes on the fabric fraying on his knees, on a small tear on his right leg. Had that always been there, or was that a result of his escapade in the woods? A part of him wanted to pull on it further, to see if it would further the tear, make a hole in it. 

“Most people aren’t exactly the same person at seventeen as they are at seven, Steven,” Dr. A said quietly, “or even as an early teenager versus being _almost_ an adult.” 

(She leaned into the word carefully, bringing to mind the discussion they had had many times about that quantifier of _almost_. About how even though he had taken up so many responsibilities and whatnot, he wasn’t an adult by any definition, and he shouldn’t have had to deal with all the things that came after the ‘almost’ threshold was passed - but that wasn’t here or now.)

“Yeah, but - I just - everyone _liked_ the old me so much, you know? Before -” He gestured at the room, at her, a pained expression on his face, because the thoughts were coming to him then, like a dam had been unlocked “- before I had to come _here_ ! Before I felt bad all the time, before I messed up so badly - everyone liked _that_ me so much more, and he’s gone now! It’s bad enough that I’m not able to be Rose Quartz for everyone, now I can’t even be _Steven Universe_ right!” 

“ _Steven._ ”

He felt the familiar crackle of electricity underneath his skin. He glanced down at his hands, clenched into tight fists, to check their color - still flesh-toned, but barely.

Dr. A sighed quietly, giving him a look that spoke stronger of her pity than she usually let her expressions tell. “You’re still you, you know. Even though it feels like you’ve experienced so much that you’re a different person - you’re still fundamentally the same person, Steven.”

He shook his hands - or were they shaking? - and shook his head side to side, _no_. 

“Or is it that you _wish_ you were a different person? Perhaps it’s that you’re wanting to go back to being who you were when you were younger?”

He covered his face with his shaking hands. Nodded once, twice.

“Why?”

“Because he was happy, that Steven - he was happy, and he didn’t have to think about things like - like behavioral therapy, and _trauma_ responses, and - sure, he messed up, but not like _I_ mess up.” 

“Are you… unhappy, then?” 

The clock ticked in the silence between them - one, two, three. 

Eventually, he sighed, huffed. “No - I mean, maybe? Sometimes? I’m not - _always_ happy like I was back then, at least! I was - I was so much better then, and -”

“Steven, make sure you’re not viewing the past through rose-colored lenses. After all - a good portion of your trauma occurred to _that_ Steven, right? Were you happy when…” She paused, looked down at her notes for a moment. “Were you happy when you were first abducted onto the ship? By, who was it…”

“Jasper,” he whispered. “Jasper and Peridot.”

“Yes, Jasper and Peridot. You said you were hurt in that encounter, and it scared you a lot, even back then.” Dr. A paused, tapping her pen against her notes. “That’s just an example - I’m not going to recount _all_ the pain that you went through back then, of course, but surely - you had more emotional downs back then than you imagine, just as you have more emotional ups now than you give yourself credit for.”

He hummed quietly in response, thinking. It - it made sense, but still the question posed itself: “then why can’t I handle them as well as I did back then?”

“Did you?” she countered. “Did you handle them well, or did you push them down, deep inside you, for yourself later on to deal with? I’d say that you were able to cope with them for the time being, back then, but you didn’t handle them - that’s why we’re dealing with them now.”

“Cool. Great.”

“Ha ha. Think of it this way, Steven - would you have been able to handle the amount of introspection, and critique, that you needed to do back then, too? Maybe, if you’re going to think of this as a separate time from when you were younger - think of this as a sort of gift to yourself in the past, then, that you allowed him _to_ be happier and more care-free.”

He sighed. Folded his arms across his chest, defensively. “I mean - sure. But how do I get back to then? _Can_ I get back to then?”

“Nope,” was her surprisingly curt reply. “No one can go back into the past, Steven. But you can prepare a gift for yourself in the future, too. If you do the work now, as - as laborious as it is, ideally you’ll be better equipped to handle what comes ahead, in the future.”

“In the future,” he echoed.

“That’s why you’re putting in the work now. Ideally, it’ll all pay off down the line and you’ll be better equipped to handle things. Much like you handled the situation the other day.”

“But I didn’t handle that at all!” he interjected. “I- I hurt people again, how can you say I handled it?”

“Easily, Steven - you didn’t transform, you managed to calm yourself down from a dangerous point, you managed to reconcile with your friends and family afterwards.” She ticked them off on her fingers, confidently staring him down. “I know it’s hard to see, because your anxiety, your depression is looking for things to latch onto, to make you feel worse about it - to feed into itself. But on paper, it doesn’t look nearly as bad as you seem to think it is."

And she leaned in, gaze intense. "Which brings me to my point - you’ve been nice to Steven in the past, and you’re working hard for Steven in the future; you need to show kindness for Steven in the present, too.”

“Why?” was his whispered response.

“Because you deserve it, Steven. You deserve kindness, much as everyone deserves kindness - much as you deserved kindness in the past, and will deserve it in the future, too. The Steven of right _now_ deserves for you to be kind to him, too."

\---

Before too long, the buzzer on Dr. A’s desk went off for the second time, signifying the end of their session. 

“Steven, your homework for next week,” his therapist said, rifling through a stack of folders quickly before pulling out a decently thick packet of papers. “Don’t focus too much on filling the whole thing out, or even reading through it too intensely - but I want you to give it a once-over, okay?” She passed the stack to him, giving him a smile that, if he wasn’t mistaken, was tinged with a hint of nerves. 

He looked down at the stack. “‘How to identify low self-esteem in yourself’?” he read out loud. “What, now I have something else wrong with me?!”

“Not necessarily, but we’re going to look into it. A lot of the language I’ve noticed from you over the past few months has been - very negative towards yourself, and before I thought it was just a reaction to your - ah, ‘transformation’. But I think we can look into tackling this as well, perhaps.” He grumbled, and she gave him a wry sort of grin. “It’s all about adding to your tool-kit, Steven - you might not always need the tool, but it wouldn’t hurt to have it.”

He grumbled in reply once again, taking the packet. “Sure, sure,” he toned, “I’ll give it a looksie.”

“That’s all I ask. See you next week.”

\---  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy. sorry once again for the delay on this. i promise im still working on this fic, it's just been a bit of a party in my dumpster fire of a brain as of late! ahaha.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ cryinghour, yee haw


End file.
